A Bloom of Clouds
by RantingSalad
Summary: In some ways, Nevermore was worse than the hospital. The people were colder, the staff more callous, and the treatments rougher. But one thing that never changed was her travels with the Doctor. He was her constant, no matter how out of order things got. And really, between the two of them, order was practically a myth. [Part Two of the Kingdom By The Sea 'verse]
1. Fate Without Destiny

It was cold outside. Much colder than her tiny frame could withstand. But she had come this far, and there was no turning back now. With blue lips and numb legs, she pushed forward. At this point, it was only desperation driving her, the need to get away. To get free.

A strong gust of wind nearly blew her over. She hadn't even realized it was winter until she'd left. It was hard to keep track of the weather when you were always stuck indoors and away from windows. But it wouldn't have stopped her even if she'd known. Nothing in the entire universe could have kept her from taking her chance now that she was alone.

The girl breathed on her hands and rubbed them as she walked. The hot air hurt, like a hundred little needles all pricking her at once. The pain wasn't even worth it—her fingers refused to bend. She tried not to worry about the state of her hands, but it was hard when her imagination kept getting the better of her. Fingers weren't like the back teeth missing in her mouth or her hair that time she acted out. They didn't grow back.

Her palms were fiery red, her knuckles white like bone, and her fingertips were turning blue like the box falling out of the sky—

She threw herself to the side just in time to avoid getting crushed. The shed she had been walking past wasn't so lucky. Scattered, splintered bits of wood were sprayed across the ground. Walking across that wasn't going to be fun. She wished she had something tougher than a pair of house slippers covering her feet.

The box had fallen on its back with the doors facing up. For a moment, it just sat there. If she ignored the ominous sounds and the dark smoke slowly drifting from the cracks, she could almost say it was peaceful. The wind had begun to die down, and the jumpstart given to her heart had breathed new life into her cold limbs.

She pushed herself up, dusting off woodchips and grass from her thin bottoms, and ambled over to the box. It was very blue. Pretty, even with the numerous scratches littering the sides. The paint had faded and chipped in places, but it was still the brightest blue she had ever seen. "POLICE BOX" was displayed in neat white letters at the top, with "PUBLIC CALL" in smaller writing between the two words. There was even a little light at the tip, the star on the small Christmas tree one of the nurses had brought last year for their station down the corridor.

The doors flew open. She jumped back, wary of the sudden movement. The thick smoke billowed out of the larger opening and nearly obfuscated the grappling hook that shot out. It dragged along the yard until it found purchase on a lawn roller.

After a few seconds, a hand grabbed the edge of the box from the inside. Then another. Then a head, and what a strange head it was, popped up. A mop of brown hair, clammy white skin, and the largest chin the girl had ever seen before. It was like looking at an alien.

He didn't notice her as he pulled himself out with what seemed like an unnecessary amount of effort. The box wasn't all that big. In fact, he should've been able to stand and simply step out. Unless the inside was deeper than the outside, but that didn't make any sense at all.

"Are you a doctor?"

"Arugh!" He tipped back and fell back inside. She waited to hear a telltale crash, but it never came. Instead, there were grunts of effort that were growing increasingly louder and more strained as the man climbed back out. Straddling the edge between his legs, he wiped his forehead. "Blimey! Warn a guy next time, would you? I nearly fell back into the pool."

He couldn't have meant a swimming pool, could he have? How did he manage to fit a swimming pool in there? No, she was losing focus. The doctors always said that a wandering mind was one of her problems. "Are you," she asked again.

"Why would you ask if I was a doctor? I mean, I am a doctor, I'm the Doctor, but the box says 'police.' Why not ask if I was police?"

She shrugged. "They're always sending new doctors to try and fix me."

It was a child's logic at its best—the girl had never met a police officer, but she had met plenty of doctors. So of course it would make more sense if the funny man was one too, even if he looked nothing like any doctor she'd seen before. His clothes looked sort of like the suits they all wore, but it was wrinkly and smudged and even ripped in some places. It also looked a little stretched out, like it was too small for him. And he was missing the white coat.

"I don't like doctors. Their hands are always cold."

"Not mine!" He stuck his hands out to show herm wobbling a little in his haste. "Mine are always warm. Or they were, not sure if this me has warm hands, my hand-holding buddy isn't here to tell me. But I don't see why not. And they're definitely warm from all the climbing you made me do again."

The girl took a hesitant step forward. The man wiggled his fingers, inviting her closer. She took another step and stretched her hand out. Her fingers ghosted over his palms, causing him to shiver. Part of her expected him to make a grab for her and was emboldened when he didn't.

His hands were warm, just like he said. They glowed orange when she laid her palm flat to his, and she flinched back. But the wisp just floated up from his hand and followed her arm. It made her skin tingle when it brushed against her, like a little wave of heat, before it floated up to the sky.

"See? Warm hands."

She giggled and nodded.

"Can I have an apple," he suddenly asked. "All I can think about—apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. That's new—never had cravings before. Whoa! Look at that!"

"Look at what,"

The Doctor swung his other leg over so that he was no longer straddling the edge. "Actually, probably best you don't. The smoke might make you sick and then you'd really need a doctor, ha!"

Disappointment settled in her gut. Actually, she was itching to see the inside of his box, to see if it really was as big in there as he made it seem. "Are you okay," she asked instead. If the smoke was bad, then maybe he wasn't feeling well. It would explain his odd behavior.

The girl knew all about being given things that made you feel terrible.

"Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Hell of a climb back up."

"But you're soaking wet. Is the swimming pool in the library?" She wrinkled her nose. What a terrible idea! The books would get wet, and the chemical smell would sink in, and what if you wanted to enjoy your book but people were splashing around and bothering you?

"Yup."

"Are you a policeman," asked a Scottish voice before the girl could think of more questions.

* * *

Amelia Pond was feeling curious. She had asked Santa to come about the crack in her wall, and when she heard the ruckus outside she'd thought that it was his sled landing. But that didn't explain the blue box, the weird man and other girl, or the crushed shed. Aunt Sharon was going to be so mad.

Good.

"Why? Did you call a policeman?"

The man was weirder than the other girl, but she was still plenty weird. Who wore short sleeves in April? She didn't even have a jacket on, or proper shoes. No—she was losing focus! "Did you come about the crack in my wall?" They could be as weird as they wanted so long as they fixed it.

"What cra… Agh!" The man fell to the ground.

"Doctor," the girl asked.

Amelia watched them closely as the man who the girl called Doctor pushed himself to his knees and insisted he was alright. Gold light came out of his mouth when he spoke. "Who are you?"

"I don't know yet. I'm still cooking. Does it scare you?"

"No, it just looks a bit weird."

The other girl nodded in agreement.

"No, no, no. The crack in your wall. Does it scare you?"

"Yes."

He jumped to his feet. "Well, then, no time to lose. I'm the Doctor. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions, and don't wander off." He started headed towards Amelia's house and walked face first into a tree that sent him back to the ground.

The other girl puttered to his side. "That was dumb."

"Early days. Steering's a bit off."

What a funny pair. Amelia had been upset when she found out that she had to spend the night alone, again, but maybe it wasn't going to be that bad if she had these two for company.

* * *

The Doctor was a little disgusting. He'd finally gotten the apple he'd been craving, and then he spit it out after one bite, spewing partially chewed up bits on the ground in front of him. The girl, who was starting feeling a hungry herself, felt her appetite wane a little. Gross.

Next, he demanded yoghurt. He poured the contents of the container straight in his mouth without bothering with a spoon, then spit that out as well. "I hate yoghurt. It's just stuff with bits in it."

"Isn't everything just stuff with bits in it," she asked.

"You said it was your favorite," Amelia protested.

"New mouth, new rules," he said, as if that explained anything, and then demanded that they fry him something.

Amelia turned to the stove with a huff, but obeyed. The girl took a seat at the table.

"Why don't you like doctors?"

She shrugged. "They're always sticking things in you. And they talk about you like you're not in the room, or like you're too stupid to understand. It always hurts after."

The Doctor ruffled his hair with a towel. Amelia served him bacon, which he also rejected after a bite, spitting it back onto the plate. "I had a friend like you," he said to her while Amelia fried up some beans for the next try. "She hated doctors too. But, well, doctors are supposed to make people feel better, they're supposed to help. Any person who doesn't isn't a doctor, even if they claim they are."

"I don't like doctors," the girl reaffirmed stubbornly. "But you're okay, I guess," she added in a quieter voice.

The Doctor's bright smile didn't last very long. He called the beans evil, and he threw the plate with toast with butter out the front door like it had personally insulted him. Defeated, Amelia slumped in a seat at the table. "We've got some carrots," she offered with no expectations.

"Carrots? Are you insane? No, wait, hang on." The Doctor started poking around in the refrigerator like it was his own. "I know what I need. I need… I need… I need…"

Twenty minutes later, the Doctor dipped a fish finger directly in a bowl of custard, used it to scope some of the sweet goop up, and took a small bite. The girls watched in anticipation as he seemed to test it on his tongue. For a moment, she was sure that this was going to be another rejection, but then he stuffed the rest of the fish finger in his mouth and gave them a thumbs up.

She sighed. Amelia giggled. To celebrate, she took out a tub of ice cream from the freezer. She offered the girl a spoon and they all dug into their treats with gusto.

When the Doctor finished the last of the fish fingers, he lifted the bowl of custard bowl and drank the rest. It left a yellow mustache on his upper lip, which he wiped away with his hand.

"Funny."

"Am I? Good. Funny's good. What's your name?" Amelia introduced herself as Amelia Pond. "Ah, that's a brilliant name. Amelia Pond, like a name in a fairy tale. And your's?"

The girl fidgeted. "You're not supposed to give your name to strangers," she mumbled.

Amelia looked crushed.

"But we're not strangers," the Doctor protested. "We've introduced ourselves and eaten together—we're practically a family!"

Oh. That made something warm bubble up in her stomach. Which was strange, since she was just eating ice cream and that was very cold. Then again, the house was much warmer than outside, so maybe it was that.

He had a point, she supposed, that they weren't strangers anymore after everything that had happened.

She gave them her name.

"Are we in Scotland," the Doctor asked.

Amelia made a face. "No. We had to move to England. It's rubbish."

"So what about your mum and dad, then? Are they upstairs? Thought we'd have woken them by now."

"I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt," Amelia replied.

"I don't even have an aunt," the Doctor said.

"Me neither," the girl added.

"You're lucky," Amelia told them. Her aunt was hardly ever home. She was always working or out with her friends or doing grown-up things that Amelia wasn't allowed to know about.

"She left you all alone?"

"I'm not scared," she insisted.

"'Course you're not." The Doctor sounded like he actually believed her. "You're not scared of anything! Box falls out of sky, man falls out of box, man eats fish custard, and look at you, just sitting there. So you know what I think?"

"What?"

"Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall."

* * *

Amelia's house was big. The Girl didn't have much of a frame of reference to compare it to, but it felt big to her. There was a lot of room for just two people. Looking around reminded her of her own room because they were nothing alike.

The crack in Amelia's bedroom was directly above her bed, and it was indeed an ominous crack. She couldn't explain why she thought so, just that it felt wrong. The Doctor examined it with his fingers and a pen-shaped probe he called his sonic screwdriver. In the doorway, Amelia held onto an apple. The Girl took her free hand, surprisingly even herself. She was about to let go when Amelia squeezed back.

"I used to hate apples, so my mum put faces on them." She handed it to the Doctor, showing him the crudely carved smiley face.

"She sounds good, your mum. I'll keep it for later." He tucked it safely in his pocket before going back to examine the crack.

The Girl hovered in the background, unsure of what to do. She eyed the wall with apprehension. Even though the crack felt wrong, she was still insanely curious about it. Why was it wrong, and how did it get there in the first place? The urge to flee warred with the desire to know more.

That was another of her problems. She was too curious for her own good, the nurses said. _Curiosity killed the cat..._

"This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it," the Doctor explained. "So here's a thing—where's the draught coming from? Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. You know what the crack is?"

"What?"

The Doctor's fingers ran along the edge. "It's a crack. I'll tell you something funny. If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, 'cos the crack isn't in the wall."

"Then where is it," the Girl asked, unable to help herself.

"Everywhere. In everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together… right here in the wall of Amelia's bedroom. Sometimes, can you hear…"

He pressed his ear against the wall. The Girl copied him. Kneeling on the bed, her head came up right beneath the crack. She understood what the Doctor said about a draught, and the wall itself was colder than the rest of the room. This close, there was an almost hollow quality to the sound of the wind.

"Prisoner Zero has escaped."

The Girl jerked back.

"Prisoner Zero," the Doctor asked.

Amelia repeated the message, then asked, "What does it mean?"

He took a step back, staring at the crack uneasily. "It means that, on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner. Do you know what that means?"

"She needs a better wall," the Girl guessed.

"No. Well, yes. It also means the only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut. Or…" He trailed off. She glanced back at Amelia, who caught her gaze. They shared a nervous realization that the other option was very not good.

"What," Amelia snapped, when it became evident the Doctor wouldn't continue unprompted.

"You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?"

"Yes."

"I hate that," the Girl added. She didn't understand it at all. What point in there was lying when the person you were lying to knew that you were lying? The truth, however unfavorable it might be, was easier to deal with than wondering if she was constantly being fibbed to.

The Doctor caught her eye. He looked at her weirdly. Not like how the other doctors or nurses in the hospital looked at her, or even how the Madame looked at her. His gaze was more… searching, but it didn't make her feel overexposed, just slightly uncomfortable.

"Everything's going to be fine." He held out his hand for her, the other tightening its grip on the sonic screwdriver. The Girl took his hand—his skin was a little rough but his hand was still warm—and offered her other one to Amelia again. They stood in a line, the three of them against whatever the crack had in store.

A bright bluish-white light shined through as the Doctor used the sonic on the crack. Through squinted eyes, the Girl saw the crack widen. Her heart dropped to her stomach and tried to rise up her throat at the same time. There were prison cells on the other side.

"Prisoner Zero has escaped."

The Doctor took a step closer as the message repeated. "Hello," he called. "Hello?"

A giant blue eyeball, cornea still connected to whatever the long nerve would lead to, peered at them from the other side. It was, simultaneously, the second coolest and second grossest thing she had ever seen. Second coolest because she had a feeling the inside of the Doctor's box would take the top spot when it was done smoking. His eating habits won the gross category.

A small lightning bolt shot out and stuck the Doctor. He fell against the bed, dragging the Girl and Amelia with him.

The crack snapped shut.

"There. You see, told you it would close. Good as new."

"What was that thing," Amelia asked. "Was that Prisoner Zero?"

He shook his head. "I think that was Prisoner Zero's guard. Whatever it was, it sent me a message. Psychic paper, takes a lovely little message. 'Prisoner Zero has escaped.' But why tell us? Unless…"

"Maybe they think we know where he is," the Girl guessed. "Or they think we helped him."

"Or…" The Doctor stood and looked around, panicked. "Prisoner Zero escaped through here. But he couldn't have. We'd know."

He ran out into the hallway, spinning around so fast, she was surprised he didn't make himself dizzy. "It's difficult. Brand-new me, nothing works yet. But there's something I'm missing… in the corner… of my eye…"

"Doctor, I think there's something wrong with your box." She could hear a wheezing sound in the distance.

No sooner had the words left her lips that a deep bell went off. The Doctor flew down the stairs, long legs eating up the distance. All the while he kept chanting the word "no," like doing so would stop whatever he didn't want happening.

He burst out the front door towards his box. It was spewing out even more smoke than before. "I've got to get back in there! The engines are phasing. It's going to burn!"

"But… it's just a box! How can a box have engines," Amelia called after him.

Quickly, he freed the grapple from the lawn roller and gathered up the rope. "It's not a box. It's a time machine."

"A real time machine," the Girl asked. The Doctor lied a lot. He lied about all the foods he wanted to eat, and about doctors being good people. It wouldn't be a stretch if he lied about having a time machine too.

"Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilized," he said. "Five minute hop into the future should do it."

"Can we come," she asked. A time machine sounded like the most fun a person could have, ever. And there was no way the hospital people could drag her back if they couldn't find her.

"Not safe in here, not yet. Five minutes. Give me five minutes, I'll be right back."

"That's was people always say," Amelia said dejectedly.

The Doctor paused. He had finished winding the rope through the door handles and had climbed on the edge, about to leap back inside. Hopping back down, he walked over and looked the two girls in the eyes. "Am I people? Do I even look like people? Trust me, I'm the Doctor."

A small smile crept onto her face. The Doctor climbed back up, gave them one last look, and jumped with a shout of "Geronimo!" The doors slammed shut behind him and, like magic, the blue box faded from view with the most terrible sound she had ever heard.

And that was the last the Girl had ever saw of him.

* * *

Amelia, she soon found out, was bossy. But that didn't mean she was unkind. To the Girl, who had spent her life around people who were both bossy and mean, or people who only pretended to be nice but were actually mean, Amelia was like a breath of fresh air. She even gave the Girl her old jacket and a pair of shoes she'd outgrown. They were both a bit big—she suspected Amelia was older than her—but they were much better than what she had.

Amelia packed quickly and messily, stuffing clothes and toys in her suitcase. She had so much stuff! The Girl had no idea what she did with all of it. Lots and lots of clothes in different colors, books she was allowed to keep, toys that played music.

They headed out to the garden when she was finished, huddling together to conserve heat as they waited. And waited. And waited. Five minutes had long since passed, and still they waited. They passed the time chattering about all the places they would go and see. Amelia wanted to visit ancient Rome, the Girl wanted to see if there really was a bridge that connected Europe to America. Both girls wanted to see the future.

Eventually, they wore themselves out. The Girl woke up tucked into bed next to Amy with no clue how either of them had gotten back inside. They were still wearing their coats, which Amelia's Aunt Sharon protested greatly about when she came home. She seemed to barrel straight past the fact that there was an extra girl in the house and fixated on them being "irresponsible children with no regard for the hard work of others."

She didn't like Aunt Sharon much, but at least she let the Girl stay.

The following months were the happiest she ever remembered being. School was extremely boring. The teachers reminded her of the hospital nurses, but not as bad even though they got mad when she read ahead of the class.

The other kids picked on Amelia and the Girl. None of them believed it when they told the story about the Doctor, except for a boy named Rory. He was nice—a bit of a pushover, but nice. He didn't protest when Amelia made him try on her dad's old clothes and pretend to be the Doctor. And even though he looked uncomfortable, he also looked like he was having fun. For a while, it was just the three of them against the world, and even though the Doctor had lied and was late, the Girl didn't mind.

Change came as it always did: so slowly no one saw it coming, then so quickly that no one could do anything about it. With the addition of Mels, their trio became a quartet. She reminded the Girl of her friend that she hadn't seen in a long time, except Mels didn't seem to like the Girl very much.

She got along famously with Amelia. It was a little odd. The Girl expected them to clash, two headstrong people with very willful personalities, but they didn't. Amelia looked tame in comparison to Mels, and not even she could control her. The pattern went like this: Mels acted out, Amelia and sometimes Rory took on the role of comforting or admonishing her, and then she acted out again.

Sometimes, the Girl felt left out of their activities, but that because, according to Amelia and Mels, she was too quiet. Because she was too quiet, they often forgot about her, and then it wasn't really their fault she wasn't included because if she wanted to be involved, she should have said so, shouldn't she have?

Much of spring passed this way until one day, on the cusp of summer just two months after Mels had joined them and a week after they had finally told her about the Doctor, the Madame came for the Girl. She must have cried. She must have begged to stay. She didn't want to go back to the terrible hospital with the doctors that stuck things in her and the nurses who said mean things. Amelia might've cried too, shouting that it wasn't fair.

She didn't belong with them, Aunt Sharon explained in a gentle voice. The Girl had her own family—didn't she miss her mum and dad? She had to go with the Madame if she wanted to get better, and then she could come back and visit. Over the months, Aunt Sharon proved not to be the mean lady the Girl had originally thought she was. Instead, she was a young adult, overwhelmed with work and looking after a child—two children—on her own.

Not that it mattered now. For the Girl, it only mattered that Aunt Sharon was saying she had to go.

In the end, no amount of crying or begging made any difference. No amount of wishing for the Doctor made him come. The Madame still took her away, and the Girl never saw Amelia or Rory again.


	2. The Christmas Invasion

The Doctor raced around and around the console, flipping switches and checking the readouts on the monitor. "6 PM… Tuesday… October… 5006… on the way to Barcelona!"

He turned and beamed at Rey once everything was set, extremely pleased with himself. She raised a brow in a _so what_ manner, the brunt of the sarcastic gesture belayed by the small upward twitch of the corners of her lips. She schooled her expression quickly, eyes darting to the third member of their group. Across the room, Rose was currently cowering by one of the pillars, confused and overwhelmed.

The Doctor, typical of him, didn't notice. "Now then… I know this isn't the first time you've seen me for you, but it's all new to me. What do I look like?" He held up his hand. "No, no no, no no no no no no no. No. Don't tell me."

Indulging him, she nodded.

"Let's see… two legs, two arms, two hands…" He rolled his wrist. "Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle." His hands flew up to his head, rubbing the brown locks between his fingers. "Hair! I'm not bald! Oh— Oh! Big hair!" His fingers moved down to the side of his face. "Sideburns—I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin?"

"Sideburns," she confirmed, looking very grave. He beamed again, understanding that it was her way of poking fun at the situation. "You're also thinner."

He slapped his belly. "That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it." She had a brief flashback to all the times Donna complained about how thin he was. It would either be extremely hilarious or deeply explosive. Possibly both. Probably both, knowing them.

The Doctor rolled his shoulders next. "I… have got… a mole. I can feel it. Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole." He fidgeted, giving a little shimmy before letting it go and straightening up. "That's alright. Love the mole. Go on then, tell me." He held his arms out so she could make her assessment. "What do you think?"

"Who are you," Rose asked before Rey could respond. She sounded scared.

"I'm the Doctor," he explained, losing some of his vigor.

Rose shook her head adamantly. "No… where is he? Where's the Doctor? What have you two done to him?" She shot Rey an accusing look.

Confused, the Doctor gestured to the spot he's just regenerated in. "You saw me, I—I changed… Right in front of you. Rey had nothing to do with it."

"I saw him sort of explode, and then you replaced him, like a… a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something." Emboldened, Rose marched over and shoved him back a step. "You're not fooling me. I've seen all sorts of things. Nanogenes… Gelth… Sitheen… Oh my god, are you a Slitheen?"

"Is there an actual Slitheen race," Rey asked, still not having gone through that adventure yet.

"I'm not a Slitheen," the Doctor said calmly.

"Send him back," Rose demanded, voice quickly rising into a shout. "I'm warning you! Send the Doctor back right now!"

"Rose, it's me," he insisted, pleading with her to understand. "Honestly, it's me. Ask Rey. it's me."

She nodded in confirmation. "He regenerated. Time Lord biology."

"I was dying," he added. "To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but… it's still me."

"You can't be," Rose whispered miserably.

He examined her for a moment, trying to figure out what would convince her. "Then how could I remember this," he asked carefully, pitching his voice low so Rey couldn't hear. He took Rose's hand, gazing at her with such tenderness that Rey felt like an intruder on such a private moment.

Rose gasped and stumbled a few steps back. Denial warred with the indisputable. Her desire for the old Doctor made her want to hold onto the idea that this wasn't real, even if she couldn't refuse the truth anymore.

"And we never stopped, did we," he continued at a normal volume, shooting Rey an apologetic look. "All across the universe. Running, running, running… One time we had to hop. Do you remember? Hopping for our lives." He demonstrated, hopping over to and around Rey.

"I remember falling into the swamp," she told him. The putrid water had made her gag, and her mind had automatically gone to listing the various insects and diseases it could've housed. Even the Doctor's assurances that the planet's environment was inhospitable to most human harmful bacteria didn't do much to make her feel better.

His eagerness died down.

"But it was nice before that," she offered.

"Can you change back," Rose asked. It was an innocent question, rooted in the desire for the familiar and not aimed to hurt. But it did hurt. As always, it was the little questions that hurt the most.

"Do you want me to," the Doctor asked, tone indecipherable.

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Can you?"

"He can't," Rey said.

His smile looked more like a wince. "Do you want to leave," he asked Rose.

She reared back as if physically struck. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No! But… your choice… if you want to go home…" Without waiting for a response he went back to the console. "Cancel Barcelona. Change to… London… the Powell Estate… ah… let's say the 24th of December. Consider it a Christmas present."

"I'm going home?"

"Up to you. Back to your mum… it's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast—no, Christmas! Turkey! Although… having met your mother… nut loaf would be more appropriate."

Rose looked down quickly, hiding her amusement.

"Was that a smile?"

"No."

"That was a smile," he teased.

"No it wasn't."

"Oh, come on, all I did was change, I didn't—" The Doctor let out a pained gasp. As if reacting to his distress, the TARDIS shuddered. Rey was by his side instantly, hands slightly raised but hesitant to touch him. "I didn't—" He tried to speak again only to be cut off again in the same way. Bending over, he retching slightly. "Uh oh."

"What's wrong?" Regenerating should've completely healed him. That was the point of regeneration—to mend.

He opened his mouth and a wisp of golden vortex energy drifted out. "Oh… the change is going a bit wrong and all." He gagged again, falling to his knees.

"A bit," she asked sarcastically.

"Look… maybe we should go back," Rose suggested. "Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'd know what to do."

"Gah— He's busy," the Doctor shouted through the pain. "He's got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!" One of the levers caught his eye. "I haven't used this one in years."

Rey's stomach dropped. She was there the last time—or should she say the next time—he decided to use that particular feature. He flipped it before she could warn him against it. The TARDIS violently jarred, nearly knocking her to the floor.

Rose shrieked. "What're you doing?!"

"Putting on a bit of speed! That's it!" Crazed, he started turning more knobs. "My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl! Faster! Wanna break the time limit?!"

"Stop it," Rose demanded, keeping a white knuckled grip on the console.

"Ah, don't be so dull—let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that vortex!"

"Doctor, please stop!" Rey was going to be sick. She felt shaky, like she had just done a lot of running, and there was a chunk of her recent memory missing. Everything felt a little too in her face, but at the same time it was like everything was duller than it was supposed to be.

Snapped to his senses, the Doctor calmed for a moment. He reached for her, then thought better of it and put his hand down on the console. "The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself. Ah, my head. Rey…"

"How do we help you?"

The cloister bell started going off. "What's that," Rose asked.

"Bad news," she answered. "Best to brace for impact. We're going to crash."

"Well then do something! You can fly this thing, can't you?"

"Oi! Enough with the shouting," the Doctor demanded, ignoring his own advice. His moment of lucidness was short lived as the hysteria returned with a vengeance. "You're always shouting and complaining and glaring!"

"It's too late," Rey explained, holding onto the console for dear life. The landing, if they even made it that far, was going to be rough. "We've already gone out of control."

"Hold on tight, here we go!"

And off they went, spinning, bouncing, and even loop-de-looping through the Time Vortex. Rey thanked all the deities she knew that the Doctor had locked in coordinates beforehand, otherwise they'd be thrown who knew when and where.

The force of breaking through the Vortex expelled them upward. They materialized about two dozen feet higher than intended. The TARDIS crashed into a building, rolled off, and hit a second building across the street before skidding down onto the ground. Still going, they hit a post van and knocked over a few metal bins as they finally came to a screeching stop.

The Doctor didn't miss a beat, throwing the doors open almost before the shaking even ceased. "Here we are, then! London! Earth! The Solar System! We did it!"

As soon as she found her footing, Rey chased after him.

"Jackie! Mickey! Blimey! No, no, no, no, hold on." He stumbled back, nearly running into her. "Wait there, I've got something to say. There was something I had to tell you. Something important. What was it, Rey? No, hold on, hold on…" Swaying forwards, He put on hand on both Jackie's and Mickey's shoulders. "Hold on, shush, shush, shush, shush… oh!"

Mickey was dressed in coveralls, likely having rushed directly from his job in the mechanic shop. Meanwhile, Jackie seemed to have just run out of her flat. Both jumped at his sudden exclamation, mirror expressions of confusion on their faces.

"I know!" He beamed. "Merry Christmas!"

And then he passed out.

Rey rushed forward, grunting as she caught him before he could fully collapse onto the ground and do more damage to his head. The weight of him had her weak legs giving out beneath her. She fell on her bottom, arms hooked uncomfortable under his. The Doctor's head knocked back into her sternum, winding her.

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS tentatively. "What happened? Is he alright?"

"I don't know, he just keeled over," Mickey exclaimed. "But who is he? Where's the Doctor?"

"This is the Doctor," Rey said. She wished one of them would help. 73 kilograms of dead weight was actually very heavy for someone trying to lift someone else closer to a foot taller than them.

"What d'you mean, 'this is the Doctor,'" Jackie repeated. "Doctor who?"

"How many 'Doctors' do you know," she gasped out. Finally, Mickey realized that she was having trouble breathing. Between him and Rose, who swiftly edged Rey out of the way, they lifted him back on his feet. Sort of.

Quickly, and wisely, they decided to move the conversation off the street. The post van's alarm had activated, and none of them wanted to stick around to see if the police would come by. Or what questions they would have about the cause behind the damages.

Once back in Jackie's flat, they settled the Doctor in the bedroom, changing him into a fresh pair of striped pyjamas. His old clothes were dirty from sweat, grime, and a few scorch marks. Jackie disappeared next door for a few minutes, only to return with a stethoscope. She handed it to Rose. "Here we go. Tina the Cleaner's got this lodger, medical student. And she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital."

"Humans and Time Lords are still two different species, no matter how similar we may look outwardly. A Time Lord's body is a marvel. Just one drop of his blood could change the course of history," Rey said.

Rose shushed her loudly. She put the eartips on and laid the chestpiece to each of the Doctor's hearts. "Both working."

"What d'you mean, 'both,'" Jackie asked.

"Well, he's got two hearts," Rose told her.

Her eyes narrowed, thinking Rose was just messing with her. "Oh, don't be stupid."

"He has!"

She eyed him warily. "Anything else he's got two of?"

"Leave him alone." Rose shot Rey a pointed glare before exiting the room. Getting the message, she followed Rose out dutifully.

She'd done something to anger Rose again, that was readily apparent. But what?

There was too much to think about—Rose, the Doctor, her missing memory. She needed to pick one and just focus. The memories were… disconcerting. For someone used to recalling a lot when she put her mind to it, it felt wrong for there to just be a gap. However uncomfortable, however, there wasn't really anything she could do about it.

Stonily, Rose rummaged through the fridge for a while before deciding nothing appealed to her. She all but slammed the refrigerator door shut, stomping over to the pantry.

"How can he go changing his face," Jackie asked, genuinely curious. "Is that a different face or is he a different person?"

Rey started to say, "A little of both. More of the former than the latter."

Three words in, Rose spoke over her, nearly shouting "How should I know?" Her voice was laced with confusion and frustration. She apologized to Jackie after a beat, knowing she was in the wrong for taking her anger out on her. Steadily, she continued to ignore Rey.

Maybe Rose was what she should pick to focus on. She should try to make amends and mend the relationship between them that had gotten so twisted when she wasn't around.

"The thing is… I thought I knew him, Mum." Her eyes pooled with tears that she fought to keep back. "I keep forgetting he's not human."

But what was wrong with not being human? Humanity wasn't a shining beacon of goodness. There were good people and bad people among the human race as there was in every other species. And the Doctor never claimed to be anything he wasn't when it mattered.

Trying to change the subject to something more lighthearted, Rose took Jackie's hand and forced a smile. "The big question is… where'd you get a pair of men's pyjamas from?"

"Howard's been staying over," Jackie said dismissively.

"What, Howard from the market? How long's that been going on?"

"A month or so. First of all, he starts delivering to the door and I thought, 'that's a bit odd.' Next thing you know, it's a bag of oranges—"

"Is that Harriet Jones," Rose abruptly exclaimed, distracted by the newscast. "Why's she on the telly?"

"Who's Harriet Jones," Rey asked, following her into the living room. The older woman on the screen was unfamiliar.

"She's Prime Minister now," Jackie explained. "I'm eighteen quid a week better off. They're calling it 'Britain's Golden Age.' Keep saying 'my Rose has met her.'"

Ah, spoilers then.

"Did more than that. Stopped World War Three with her," Rose said with a fond smile. "Harriet Jones…"

On TV, it looked like she was giving an impromptu press interview. The focus of the news segment was supposed to be a British space probe sent to Mars.

"Harriet Jones—what about those calling the Guinevere One Space Probe a waste of money," the reporter asked, obviously trying to spark a heated response.

Harriet stayed cool, firmly stating her stance but not being obnoxious about it. "Now, that's where you're wrong. I completely disagree if you don't mind. The Guinevere One Space Probe represents this country's limitless ambition. British workmanship sailing up there among the stars."

"This is the spirit of Christmas," the technician heading the project, Llewellyn, stated. "Birth and rejoicing, and the dawn of a new age, and that is what we're achieving fifteen million miles away. Our very own miracle."

The image on the screen changed, setting up a computerized schematic of Guinevere One's journey. "The unmanned probe Guinevere One is about to make its final descent. Photographs of the Martian Landscape should be received by midnight tonight."

Just in time for Christmas.

The thought should've stirred some sentiment inside of her, but it just didn't. She couldn't tell if maybe it was because this wasn't the present time for her, or because she never spent time out as part of the general population. Concepts like Christmas, the Holiday Spirit, and even miracles felt foreign to her. They were just things she read in books, not anything she experienced in real life. Not like the Doctor.

He slept on, not peacefully, but not uneasily either. Every so often, he'd breathe out regeneration energy that swirled in the air before disappearing. It really was fascinating to look at. The golden wisps circled the air as if playing.

Rose and Mickey had gone down to the shops. The flat was quiet but for Jackie's voice. She spoke to herself, fussing and complaining about this and that to fill up the empty space. She spoke over the phone, telling friends and extended family that Rose was back in time for the festivities. There was hardly a minute of silence. Rey thought she was lonely. For nineteen years, all Jackie had was Rose, and now Rose had left, only popping in now and then.

For the first time in a while, Rey thought about her own parents. She had to have some—girls weren't just created fully formed out of nowhere. She had to have parents, maybe even grandparents, aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters. Did they still think of her sometimes—the child they gave up—or had they just forgotten her as soon as they could? She wondered what it was like to grow up in a family. Theirs was small, but Jackie and Rose still had family.

Resentment started pooling in her gut, hot like lava.

She didn't resent Rose and Jackie. There was no point in resenting people who had nothing to do with the issue. No, who she felt bitter towards were her own parents. Where were they? Why hadn't they wanted her?

Shaking her head, she tried to force her thoughts away from that line of thinking. The lava would cool and char and stay there forever if she let it, and she didn't want such heavy bleak feelings to cloud her life.

Jackie wandered a few minutes later, carrying a cup of tea. She was still on the phone, receiver squashed between her ear and shoulder. Setting the cup down on the bedside table for the Doctor in case he woke up, she gestured to the kitchen to indicate there was more. Rey followed her out, hoping the change in ambiance would help lift her mood. Maybe the ruminating would stop if it had the outside world to contend with.

There was something curious in the corner of the living room. And by curious, she meant suspicious. Rey knew what a Christmas tree was—she wasn't _that_ out of touch with society. One of the nurses would bring in a miniature one year after year without fail for the nurse's station in the hospital. Still, she was fairly sure looking at a regular sized one wasn't supposed to make you feel like this.

Like she was staring at a wall of knives instead.

She ducked back into the room to retrieve the sonic screwdriver. When she walked back out, Rose and Mickey were back, faces flushed as they had hurried home as fast as they could. Rose grabbed the phone from Jackie, quickly bidding the other party a careless goodbye before hanging up.

"Right, it's not safe here, we've gotta get out—where can we go?"

"My mate Stan," Mickey offered. "He'll put us up."

"That's only two streets away. What about Mo? Where's she living now?"

"I dunno," Jackie replied quickly, still very confused. "Peak District!"

"Oh, we'll go to Cousin Mo's then," Rose decided.

"It's Christmas Eve! We're not going anywhere! What're you babbling about?"

"Jackie, where did this tree come from?" Rey refused to take her eyes off it. It was like a loaded syringe or a stun weapon—there were some things you just didn't look away from. Not if you wanted to survive.

"Well, I thought it was Rose!"

"What does the tree matter, we need to leave," Rose protested.

"It matters because I don't think that's an ordinary tree…"

The lights turned on by themselves. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Rose complained right before the branches started to spin. Not so fast at first, but it the rotations sped and sped until they were moving so fast they blurred. _Jingle Bells_ began playing as the tree shot forward from its place at the corner. It rendered the coffee table to sawdust in seconds.

"Run," Rey ordered. "Now."

Rose and Jackie ran from the room. Rey fumbled with the setting on the sonic—the circuits must have gotten a little fried because the commands were a bit sticky. Mickey picked a chair.

"We've got to save the Doctor," she heard Rose yell in the corridor behind her. "We can't just leave him!"

The tree inched closer. Mickey held the chair with its legs out, trying to halt or push it back. Instead, the legs got caught in the rotor and snapped off. They were quickly shredded beyond recognition.

Rey smacked the sonic against her palm. "Come on, work!"

"Leave it," Jackie screamed at them. "Get out! Get out!"

Mickey abandoned what was left of the chair and pulled her along with him into the Doctor's room. Jackie, the last to enter after them, slammed the door behind her in protest. She and Mickey worked together to barricade the door, sliding the wardrobe in front of it.

Finally, Rey managed to get the sonic to shift settings. Rose snatched the screwdriver from her hands before she could use it. She placed it in the Doctor's slack hold, bending over his unconscious body and urging him to wake up.

"Rose, I don't think it's a good idea to—"

"Like you have a better plan?!"

"I can use the sonic," she argued back. "The Doctor isn't well. He shouldn't—"

The tree smashed through the door and the wardrobe. "I'm gonna get killed by a Christmas tree," Jackie partly squeaked, mostly shouted, as she cowered against the far wall.

"Help me," Rose said clearly into the Doctor's ear, ignoring everything Rey said to her.

Eyes snapping open, he slid from sleep to full wakefulness in a single second. Smoother than she'd ever seen him move, he got up from the bed and aimed the sonic squarely at the festive death machine. It exploded with a shower of sparks.

"Remote control," he observed. "But who's controlling it?"

There was a dressing gown in the drawer of the small bedside cabinet. He put it on, securing the belt as he headed straight for the balcony and stepped outside. Rey followed him, a growing sense of unease pooled in her gut. She felt like she'd failed in not being able to stop the tree before the Doctor woke up.

He wasn't well and he still ended up having to save her.

Below, clearly staring up at them, stood three robots dressed as Santa Claus. "That's them," Mickey said. He and Rose must have encountered them in the streets and rushed back. "What are they?"

Rose shushed him without looking. Her gaze was fixed on the Doctor's form as he raised the sonic threateningly at the robots. In tandem, they took a couple of steps back and closer to each other. Then, in a flash of light, the three were teleported away.

"They've just gone! What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence, but they're not much cop if a sonic screwdriver's gonna scare them off."

"Pilot fish," the Doctor said a little vaguely. "They were just pilot fish."

"Any idea what they've congregated around," Rey asked. He turned to look at her, then coughed and flinched back against the wall. Pain warped his features, body shuddering as he worked through spasms.

"What's wrong," Rose asked, elbow jarring Rey out of the way in her haste to reach him. Rey ignored the fresh sharp, pain in her abdomen and moved to the Doctor's other side.

"Rey was right, you woke me up too soon," he gasped out through heavy pants. "I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy." On cue, another golden wisp escaped through his mouth. "You see? The pilot fish could smell it. A million miles away. So they eliminate the defense—that's you lot—and they carry me off. They could run their batteries on me for a couple of year—" He groaned as a fresh wave of pain hit, pitching forward as if to try and escape it. "My head! I'm having a neuron implosion I need—"

"What do you need," Jackie asked frantically, cutting him off. She was in full blown panic mode now.

"I need—"

"Do you need aspirin," she tried.

"I—"

"Codine? Paracetamol? Oh, I dunno— Pepto-Bismol?"

"I need—" the Doctor tried again.

"Liquid paraffin," Jackie suggested. "Vitamin C? Vitamin D? Vitamin E?"

"I need—"

"Is it food? Something simple? Uh—a bowl of soup? A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?"

"I need you to shut up," he finally managed to say.

Jackie paused, then collected herself. "Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?"

The Doctor jolted forward again. Now he leaned against the opposite wall, facing the interior of the flat. A shaking hand came up, which Rey took. "We haven't got much time. If there's pilot fish, then—" His other hand moved into his dressing down pocket and pulled out an apple. "Why's there an apple in my dressing gown?"

"Oh, that's Howard," Jackie explained, "sorry."

"He keeps apples in his dressing gown?"

"He gets hungry."

The Doctor examined the apple confusedly. "What, he gets hungry in his sleep?"

"Sometimes."

"SRED," Rey said dismissively. The Doctor needed to say what he wanted quickly, and then he likely needed to fall back into unconsciousness.

He started to nod, then shouted. His grip on Rey tightened as he mustered through the fresh wave of pain. "Brain— collapsing—" Through gritted teeth he tried to explain. "R— Rose, this is— important. Listen to Rey, something— Something's coming."

He collapsed again before he could explain further, limp and unresponsive.

"Let's get him back in bed," Rey suggested.

The Doctor's face was still pinched and he was all sweaty now. Carefully, they tucked him in. Using the stethoscope to examine him again, Rose revealed that only one of his hearts was beating now. Quietly, they left him in the room, knowing there was nothing they could do.

On the television, the broadcast was still talking about Guinevere One. Almost absentmindedly, Rey noted that something had gone wrong—mission headquarters had lost contact with the probe while all that drama with the tree and pilot fish was going on. Though they'd apparently reestablished it now.

"They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes."

"Yes, we are," Llewellyn confirmed. "We're— we're back on schedule. We received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success."

"But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight," one of the reporters asked.

"Yes, we had a bit of a scare. Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it— it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds. She's fine now, absolutely fine. We— We're getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks."

"So what are pilot fish," Mickey asked, looking to Rey.

"On Earth, they're carnivorous fish that gather around large sea creatures. They scavenge the host species' leftovers. These must be the extraterrestrial version of them."

"The Doctor said something is coming… Any idea of how close?"

"No. But traditionally, pilot fish never wander very far."

"Oh, and you'd know that, would you," Rose asked sarcastically. Her eyes were rimmed red from unshed tears.

"The Doctor said to listen to her," Mickey protested weakly.

"He also said his brain was collapsing! It's her fault that he's like this in the first place! How do we even know we can trust her, huh? She didn't know what to do with the sonic, and it's not like she sticks around much, she just pops in and out like some— some stray cat he fed once. We don't even know her real name! Rey what?"

The words came pouring out of her like steam someone had finally released from a kettle that had been boiling for too long. Rose was left huffing, face red and splotchy. Mickey's and Jackie's reservations made so much sense now. They thought she was suspicious, and Rey wasn't going to lie, that realization hurt. Distantly, she wondered why she'd never realized it before. And then she realized it was because she hadn't wanted to. So like an ordinary person, she'd closed her eyes to things she didn't want to see.

"Rey is my last name," she corrected, unsure why those were the first words out of her mouth. "Does it matter what my first name is? I don't use it or go by it. Rey is the name I choose to go by."

"But that's the problem," Rose insisted. "You're still keeping secrets, like you think you're better than us, but you're not! You're just—"

"Uh, guys,' Mickey cautiously interrupted. His gaze was fixed on the television screen. "I think you should take a look at this."

The image was distorted, interrupted by static and too focused to see clearly. "Funny sort of rocks," Jackie commented.

"Those aren't rocks…"

"…coming live from the depths of space on Christmas morning," the reporter's voice could be heard saying.

Slowly, and then all at once, the image cleared. The grainy brown bumps Jackie had thought were rocks was actual a face. The alien wore a helmet of sorts that covered the entire head, leaving only red eyes exposed. Oh, and it looked like it was made of aged bone.

The alien roared viciously, startling Rey with the sudden noise. The roars continued, deep growls and throaty guttural grunts that made her head ache. Mickey retrieved his laptop, dutifully telling Jackie he was using the phone line, and the archaism of it was a little jarring. She had to remember that it was only 2005, and that broadband had just started becoming widespread.

Somehow, that realization made her feel lonely. Though it wasn't much further back than her own time, she felt alone and lost in time.

"Take a look, I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way." He pulled up a mock up showing the ship's location relative to Earth onto his monitor. It was labeled as under the jurisdiction of UNIT.

"Come for what, though," Rose asked. "The Doctor?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's coming for all of us. Have you seen them before," he asked.

Rey shook her head while Rose answered aloud in the negative. "I don't understand what they're saying," the blonde told him. "The TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am."

"So, why isn't it doing it now?" He turned to Rey.

"Must be the Doctor," Rose guessed before she could answer. This time, however, Rey didn't think she did it on purpose. She was curled up on the couch, staring at the telly with a lost look on her face. "Like he's part of the circuit, and he's… he's broken."

"He's healing," she corrected. The Doctor would be okay. They just needed to figure out what he needed in order to get there.

She stared at the burgundy walls blankly, trying to ease her headache. It was threatening to become a full on migraine, and that was the last thing she needed right now. All the news channels were playing the same thing: the alien message. There was no translation available yet, but everyone was treating it like a threat.

A couple of hours later, she checked in on the Doctor again. Jackie was asleep in the chair by the bed. Rey grabbed a throw and draped it over her shoulders. Despite her claims not to like him, she still cared. Deep down, maybe even too deep for her to realize herself, she was fond of the Doctor.

"The Doctor wouldn't do this," Rose said in a shaky voice. She and Mickey had come up behind her. "The old Doctor. The proper Doctor. He'd wake up. He'd save us."

"He's still the Doctor," Rey protested. She understood that Rose was confused. She'd gotten no warning or time to prepare herself for the change. But honestly, her negativity was starting to get on Rey's nerves. Shapeshifting was hardly the strangest thing they'd come across. Compared to gas creatures and a Dalek army led by a deranged fanatic, this was downright tame. "He's healing because of something we both did." They'd both looked at the heart of the TARDIS, after all. "It isn't as if he's sleeping because he's lazy."

Rose narrowed her eyes in a glare, spun on her heel with a huff, and walked away. "She's just worried," Mickey said, trying to defend her.

"I know," Rey admitted, her irritation drying up. It was hard to work up the energy to feel much of anything.

"She really loves him." His tone was a contradictory mess of sadness, regret, and acceptance.

"I know."

The night felt too short. At sunrise, Rey was out on the balcony, shivering a little in the Doctor's jacket. Sunrises were supposed to be hopeful. In literature, they had been used as a symbol more times that she cared to remember. They were supposed to mean a new start, a change.

Rey never really cared for twilight. She liked the pretty colors, the way the sunlight scattered particles to make way for yellows and oranges and reds. But sunrises and sunsets were just phenomenon that happened, like facts, regardless of any cultural connotation. There was no point in waiting for a star to travel from the horizon—if you wanted to make a change, it was better to just start right away. And if something as simple as dawn could change your mind, then maybe your values were just fickle to begin with.

Something flashed across the sky. For one irrational moment she thought, it was lightning and nearly rushed back inside. But lightning didn't disperse like that, in all directions in a circle. Which meant it was probably the aliens.

A commotion was brewing outside. Out of nearly every apartment, barefoot and not bothering to properly dress, people in a daze walked out. Their worried loved ones trailed behind. None of them responded to their names or even attempts to physically stop them, they just kept walking.

The stairs were ever so crowded as the hypnotized all made their way up to the roof. They positioned themselves in a straight line at the very edge, one little twitch away from toppling over. And then they just stopped.

It wasn't just their building. Looking out, Rey could see that every other rooftop was the same. People lined up, ready to step off, and worried family and friends tried to get them to snap out of it. She wondered if the whole world was like this too.

It was a threat, loud and clear.

Something nagged at her brain, something about the sort of people who'd been chosen and why. It wasn't just one per household—some were entirely affected like the family three doors down, and some were completely unaffected like the Tyler household. Also, if the aliens' intention was to force their surrender—and Rey could imagine a number of other possibilities, but none so likely—why not send a few people off? It was a threat, but threats could be dismissed as just empty words unless you proved you meant them.

She felt like the answer was staring her in the face, if only she could see it.

When it became clear how helpless they were, Rose fled back to her flat. Rey and Mickey followed her, both equally upset and frustrated at their lack of ability to help. The newsroom that the television had been playing was now showing a blank counter seeing as the reporter had been affected and was up on the station roof.

Thirty-eight minutes later, it cut to an emergency broadcast. Harriet Jones, grim-faced and determined, had prepared a speech. "Ladies and gentlemen… if I may take a moment during this terrible time. It's hardly the Queen's speech, I'm afraid that's been cancelled." She turned to address someone off-screen. "Did we ask about the royal family? Oh. They're on the roof. But—ladies and gentlemen—this crisis is unique, and I'm afraid to say, it might get much worse. I would ask you all to remain calm. But I have one request: Doctor. If you're out there… we need you."

Rey didn't need to glance at Rose to know how she was reacting. Her own hands were curled into fists in her lap. Frustration. Helplessness. Anger. Guilt. Anxiety. She was a cocktail of everything bitter and sour.

"I don't know what to do," Harriet admitted. "But if you can hear me, Doctor… If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him… the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor. Help us."

Rose fled into the Doctor's room. She couldn't make it further than the doorway, leaning against the frame. Fat tears fell down her face as shudders wracked her body. Jackie went over to her, pulling her into her arms.

"He's gone," Rose choked out. "The Doctor's gone. He's left me, mum. He's left me…"

Jackie shushed her, placing a gentle kiss on her head. "It's alright… I'm sorry…"

Rey fell off her seat to floor. Before she even registered what was going, on she was huddled in a fetal position, back against the sofa. The windows burst, broken glass raining down from the panes. The entire building was shaking. It was an earthquake, she was in another earthquake. She was trapped and suffocating and dying, dying, dying…

"Are… are you alright?"

No.

No, she wasn't.

It wasn't an earthquake, it was coming from above…

The world stopped shaking. Rey wasn't trapped, but in the middle of a slightly cluttered living room. She could breathe, and she wasn't dying, and the world wasn't coming down around her.

Rose stared at her like she was the alien, and Rey _hated_ that face.

She took a deep breath, lungs aching. Using the sleeve of her shirt beneath the jacket, she wiped her sweat away. Legs shook beneath her and muscles protested as she should, but they held her up. "I'm fine."

Mickey came racing back into the flat before Rose could ask anything else. He'd gone out for a walk to clear his head, but clearly, he hadn't gone far. "What the hell was that?"

"Sonic wave," Rey answered. The shaking hadn't been consistent with a normal earthquake, and it had started from the top down rather than the reverse. Most likely, the pulse had been sent from the spaceship above them. "I think we should get the Doctor to the TARDIS."

It was the most likely place they'd find a cure or treatment. And the safest for a recovering Time Lord in case things really went south.

"Right, Mickey, we're gonna carry him," Rose decided. She threw off the duvet. "Mum—get your stuff, and get some food. We're going. The TARDIS is the only safe place on Earth."

"What're we gonna do in there," Jackie exclaimed.

"Hide," Rose said.

"Is that it?"

"Plan," Rey added. "If we want to break the hypnosis and stop the end of the world, we'll have a better chance from in there."

"Oh, just stop it! Look at the sky," Rose snapped. "There's a great, big, alien invasion and you might know some flashy science words, but when it comes down to it, you don't know what to do right now any more than I do. We're useless, all we can do is run and hide."

Rey clamped her mouth shut. She wanted to argue—they could learn, couldn't they? They could teach themselves and get stronger. But she didn't say any of that because there was no point. She knew Rose wouldn't listen. At least not to her. It was like that saying—some people didn't give up until they reached the Yellow River. Well, some people gave up before they even left the house.

Rose positioned herself at the Doctor's shoulders. Mickey took his legs. "Lift him."

Rey helped Jackie with gathering supplies. Or she tried, at least. Jackie was in such a flurry, panicking about what to bring and what little time she had to prepare. She had basically just shoved five canisters of tea at Rey and told the younger girl to go.

The TARDIS wasn't very far. They could make multiple trips if they needed, but Rose was adamant on them getting out as soon as possible, as if they were caught in the crosshairs and it was run or die. Rey went ahead, unlocking the TARDIS. She set the thermoses of tea down on the grating before doubling back to see what else she could help it.

Jackie struggled with several bags. One dropped, and when she bent to pick it up, another two slid off her shoulder. "Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand," Rose shouted, frustrated.

"It's food," Jackie protest. "You said we need f—"

"Just leave it!"

Rey went to Jackie, grabbing a few of her bags. She ran back to the Doctor next, taking one of his arms from Rose so the three of them—her, Rose, and Mickey—could carry him to the TARDIS.

"No chance you could fly this thing," Mickey asked.

"Not anymore, no," Rose said stiffly.

"Well, you did it before…"

"I know, but it's sort of been… wiped out of my head, like it's forbidden." They placed the Doctor on the floor. "Try that again and I think the universe rips in half."

"Or you would," Rey added.

"What about you," Mickey asked her. "Can you fly the TARDIS."

Yesterday she would have responded with a firm "maybe." She was getting better, but the TARDIS was never meant for a sole pilot, and they definitely never factored humanity into the design. She was confident she could manage a quick hop in time or a trip to a distant star, but probably not both at the same time.

At least, that was yesterday. Maybe it was the residual effects of partially housing the Time Vortex, but she felt like the controls made more sense now. Or maybe she had been subconsciously using the Doctor as a crutch, and now that she couldn't rely on him, she was finding out how much she really knew.

Mickey took her silence as a "no." Rose looked a bit smug, but mostly she was just plain scared. Rey didn't bother to correct them. They weren't leaving. She owed the world nothing, but she couldn't just leave things as they were. The Doctor never would.

"So, what do we do? Just sit here?"

"That's as good as it gets," Rose said petulantly.

Jackie handed her one of the thermal flask. "Right, here we go. Nice cup of tea."

"Hmm, the solution to everything…"

"Now, stop your moaning. I'll get the rest of the food." She quickly left the TARDIS to make another trip back to her flat.

"Tea," Mickey noted humorously, flicking one of the thermoses and making a dull _clang_ echo out. "Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. Very British." When Rose didn't respond, he looked awkwardly at the monitor. Rey had half a mind to head to the library for research, but she wanted to wait until Jackie was back and they were more situated.

"How does this thing work? It picks up TV, maybe we could see what's going on out there. Maybe we've surrendered. What do you do to it?"

He started pressing a few random buttons to see what they'd do. If he wasn't careful, he could bring the TARDIS out of cloaked mode. "Mickey, you shouldn't—"

The shift was small, just a minute increase in the electrical charge in the air. It tasted a bit metallic and made the hair on Rey's arms raise. She checked on the Doctor quickly, looking for any changes. He was still motionless on the floor, only the furrow of his brow to indicate his discomfort.

The monitor started beeping. "Maybe it's a distress signal," Mickey suggested.

"Fat lot of good that's gonna do," Rose commiserated.

"Are you gonna be a misery all the time?"

"Yes."

"You should look at it from my point of view—stuck in here with your mum's cooking."

Rose looked around. "Where is she? I'd better go and give her a hand. It might start raining missiles out there."

"Tell her anything from a tin, that's fine," Mickey called.

"Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"I'm not that brave."

"Oh, I don't know…"

"Rose, I don't think—" She was already through the now open doors. Rey rushed to follow her out. Like she'd feared, they had move. Worse, they in the middle of enemy territory.

The ship was almost built like a cave. The walls looked like they were made of stone, and the ground was like a layer of gravel mixed with dirt. Rose screamed as one of the guards grabbed her. Another wrapped his hand around Rey's arm.

Mickey rushed out at the sound of Rose's fright. He was momentarily paralyzed, struck dumb by the sight of where they now were. "Close the door," Rey urged, trying to stay calm. The key to getting out of someone's grip was to do so after they'd dropped their guard.

He ran back and managed to slam it shut right before a third guard nabbed him. The leader, set apart from the others by his throne and mask, roared in triumph. The holes around his eyes were larger compared to the others, and his mouth and lower cheeks were uncovered, the mask running along his jaw line instead. His skin looked like dried leather.

Harriet Jones and her assistant Alex were there as well, both looking rather shaken. Harriet stumbled over to Rose, pulling her into a hug full of relief and shared terror. "Rose! I've got you. My Lord. My precious thing. And Rey, you're here too."

She nodded back, unsure how she should respond. Technically, they'd never met before.

"The Doctor… is he with you?"

"No. We're all on our own," Rose said in a shaky voice.

Alex had a PDA that he was clutching for dear life, using it to translate. The leader pointed at Rose and Rey angrily. "'The yellow girl. She and the other have the clever blue box. Therefore, they speak for your planet.'"

"But they can't." Harried protested.

"Yeah, I can," Rose lied.

"Don't you dare," Mickey hissed, worried out of his mind.

"Someone's gotta be the Doctor." Rose shot Rey a look. "And it can't be _her_."

Harriet looked between them, confused at the animosity between the two girls. Or maybe it was just the intensity of it.

"Do we know who they are," Rey asked her. Intelligence was the key to survival. Even if she couldn't place the species by sight, maybe she'd read about them. Any information was better than none. It was always better to know.

"They're called the Sycorax. But other than that we don't really know much. All the people on Earth they've taken control off had Type A Positive blood—it was one of the samples on the Guinevere One Space Probe.

Blood type, of course! She should have realized it earlier. Which meant that the people on the rooftops were technically fine.

Rose stepped forward towards the Syxorax leader. "I, um… I address the Sycorax according to… article 15 of the Shadow Proclamation. I command you to leave this world with all the authority of the Slitheen Parliament of Raxacoriofallapatorius, and um… the Gelth Confederacy… A— as uh… sanctioned… by the Mighty Jagrafess… and… Oh, the Daleks! Now, leave this planet in peace! In peace…"

Rey resisted the urge to wince, but just barely. It wasn't necessarily a terrible ad-lib. If Rose took out all the filler words and was speaking to, say, Harriet, she would even be convincing. But sadly, reality was not so kind. There was a few seconds of silence before all the Sycorax started laughing.

"'You are very, very, funny,'" Alex translated. "'And now you're going to die.'" The leader got up from his elevated position and circled Rose like a hawk might a field mice.

"Leave her alone," Harriet shouted, trying to get to Rose.

"Don't touch her," Mickey ordered, attempting the same.

Both were quickly restrained.

"'We are the Sycorax. We astride the darkness. Next to us you are but a wailing child. If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion…'"

"Then your world will be gutted…"

"'Then your world will be gutted,'" Alex said half a second later.

"…and your people enslaved," the leader continued.

"'…and your people enslaved.'"

Rey cleared her throat. "You don't have to translate anymore."

"He's talking English," Harriet said in surprise.

"You're talking English," Rose said in rising triumph.

"Actually, we're just hearing English," Rey pointed out. "He's still speaking Sycoraxic. Though, the fact that we can understand him means…" She turned around to look at the TARDIS.

The doors stayed stubbornly still for a second. And then they opened, and the Doctor stood there, still dressed in those striped pyjamas and robe, smiling. "Did you miss me?"

The Sycorax leader roared. He lashed out with his whip, but the Doctor simply caught the end and pulled it from his hands. He threw the weapon to the side like it was a piece of string he didn't want. "You could have someone's eye out with that."

The leader tried again to attack the Doctor, using his staff. He struck over and over, missing every time. Eventually, the Doctor snatched that from him as well, breaking it using his knee. He dropped the pieces. "You just can't get the staff. Now, you, just wait. I'm busy."

Their reunion was very much in the vein of the Doctor. He greeted Mickey first, then Harriet. The joy was real, but his careless attitude seemed to catch them both off guard. "Tea! That's all I needed! A good cup of tea! Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses…" He turned to Rey, lowing his voice and tone to reflect seriousness. "Hi."

"Hello again."

"Be honest. How do I look?"

"A little funny," she said truthfully. It was probably his clothes throwing her off.

"Good funny or bad funny?"

"Just funny. And no, you're not ginger this time either."

"Aww, I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger." he whined like a child. Then, he turned to Rose, pointing at her almost violently. "And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were—you gave up on me— Oh, that's rude. That's the sort of man I am now, am I? Rude. Rude and not ginger."

"I'm sorry—who is this," Harriet asked in a small voice.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said.

"He's the Doctor," Rey and Rose said at the same time.

Harriet stared at all three of them, still confused. "But what happened to my Doctor? Or is it a title that's just passed on?"

"I'm him. I'm literally him. Same man, new face—well, new everything."

"But you can't be," she adamantly denied.

The Doctor shot Rey a look. She recognized that look. She hated that look. He gave her the same look every time he was about to say something spoiler-y and didn't want her to listen. The corners of her lips turned down. He winced, pleading silently. With an exaggerated eye roll, she turned around and covered her ears.

The Sycorax leader was fuming, stewing hotter and hotter longer they ignored him. She wondered if he had ears the same way humans did, and if steam would blow from them if he was disregarded for any longer. "If I might interrupt," he yelled.

"Yes! Sorry! Hello, big fella," the Doctor said cheerily.

"Who exactly are you?"

"Well. That's the question."

"I demand to know who you are," he growled.

"I don't know," the Doctor roared back, mimicking his deep voice. Then he relaxed. He came up to Rey, just standing near her. "See, there's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I— I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy?" He winked at Rose who smiled back coyly. "Right old misery? Life and soul? Right-handed? Left-handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob."

"Yes, that certainly never changes," Rey agreed readily. "Have you noticed it yet, clever boy?"

"Ooh, clever am I? Well, 'Course I am. 'Course I have. You know me, even when I don't seem to. A great big threatening button." During his talk, they had wandered from one end of the room to the center. He led her quickly up the short flight of stairs, laughing. "A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances. Am I right? Let me guess, it's some sort of control matrix?"

"Blood control," Rey supplied helpfully. "A Positive."

"Blood control! Oh! I haven't seen blood control for years! They're controlling all the A Positives?" The leader's grimace faltered. He was doing a poor job and maintaining control over the situation. "Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. 'Cos… I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never ever be pressed… then I just wanna do this."

He slammed his hand on the button.

"No," both Rose and Harriet shouted at the same time.

"You killed them," Alex accused.

"What do you think, big fella? Rey? Are they dead?"

"We allowed them to live," the leader said bitterly.

"Allow? You've no choice! I mean, that's all blood control is. Cheap bit of voodoo. Scares the pants off you, but that's as far as it goes. It's like hypnosis—you can hypnotise someone to walk like a chicken or sing like Elvis, you can't hypnotise them to death. Survival instinct's too strong."

The leader growled. "Blood control was just one form of conquest. I can summon the armada and take this world by force."

"Well, yeah, you could, yeah, you could do that—of course you could. But why? Look at these people." He gestured to the small group with them. "These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet and blinking step into the sun. There is more to see than can ever be seen more to do than—no, hold on… Sorry, that's 'The Lion King."'

"What's the Lion King," Rey asked.

He gasped dramatically. "You've never seen 'The Lion King?' Oh, we've gotta fix that. Next stop Walt Disney Pictures, 1994. Unless you'd like to see the musical? The remake's rubbish though. Oh, sorry, back to the point. Leave them alone," he demanded.

"Or what?"

"Or…" The Doctor nabbed a sword from one of the guards. He ran back down the stairs and into the empty space in front of the TARDIS. "I challenge you."

The Sycorax all burst out laughing, their bellows echoing in the cavernous room.

"Oh, that struck a chord. Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?"

The leader walked down the steps at a leisurely pace, unsheathing his own sword. "You stand as this world's champion."

"Thank you," the Doctor said as he took off his dressing gown. He tossed to Rose. "I've no idea who I am, but you just summed me up. So—you accept my challenge? Or are you just a cranak pel casacree salbak?"

The insult had him hissing. Both positioned themselves across from one another, kneeling with their swords propped beside them. The hilts were up by their heads while the points of the blades dug into the floor.

"For the planet?"

"For the planet," the Doctor agreed.

Standing and holding their swords at the ready, there was a moment of stillness before they rushed at each other. The fighting consisted mostly of swipes and dodges rather than technical swordplay, and was evenly matched until the Doctor was pushed aside. The leader laughed confidently, but the Doctor just straightened up and the battle resumed.

"Look out," Rose called as the lead swung his sword at the Doctor.

"Oh, yeah, that helped. Wouldn't have thought of that otherwise, thanks," he replied sarcastically. Leading the fight back up the stairs, he hit a button that opened the doors. There was a platform on the other side, almost like an expansive balcony but without any railings. "Bit of fresh air?"

Rey followed them out, and the others were right behind her. Even a few of the Sycorax came with, guards to make sure they didn't interfere and to moderate the duel.

The Doctor was hit in the nose, though by a stroke of luck, it wasn't broken. Rose moved to run to him, but he quickly raised a hand out to stop her. "Stay back! Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet." He wiped a trickle of blood that had dripped down and they clashed swords again.

Taking advantage of a momentary weakness, the Sycorax leader sliced the Doctor's hand clean off his wrist. It fell off the side of the ship, down, down, down towards London below. "You cut my hand off," the Doctor said, sounding surprised and a little annoyed. He didn't sound hurt though, and there was no blood from the fresh would.

"Yah! Sycorax!"

"And now I know what sort of man I am," he said, getting to his feet. "I'm lucky. 'Cos quite by chance… I'm still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle. Which means I've got just enough residual cellular energy to do this."

He held up his injured arm. The empty sleeve fluttered in the wind for a moment before the hand reconstructed itself before their very eyes.

"Witchcraft," the leader claimed.

"Time Lord," the Doctor clarified.

Rose snatched another of the Sycorax's swords. "Doctor!" She threw it to him and he caught it cleanly by the handle.

"Oh, so I'm still the Doctor, then?"

"No arguments from me," she said with a huge beam.

"Wanna know the best bit? This new hand… It's a fightin' hand!" The last part was spoken in a horrendous Texan accent, but he seemed to be correct. After a few swift exchanges, he managed to ram the handle of his sword into the leader's stomach. He repeated the move twice more, causing the leader to fall to the ground. With a sword levied at his throat, he declared, confidently, "I win."

"Then kill me," the leader said.

"I'll spare your life if you'll take this champion's command! Leave this planet, and never return. What do you say?"

"Yes."

The Doctor edged the sword closer. All pretense of jubilance was dropped. For a moment, he was deadly serious and almost too angry. "Swear on the blood of your species."

Through laboured breaths, the leader did so.

And the calm and easygoing attitude was back. "There we are, then! Thanks for that! Cheers, big fella!" He stuck the sword into the ground and walked away.

Harriet clapped. "Bravo!"

"That says it all," Rose agreed as she rushed towards him. "Bravo!"

"Not bad for a man in sleep clothes," Rey teased. The Doctor looked rather proud. He accepted the dressing gown from Rose and put it back on. "Very Arthur Dent."

"Oh, now there was a nice man. Hold on, what have I got in here?" In his right pocket, the left had contained the apple, was an orange. "A Satsuma. Ah, that friend of your mother's—he does like his snacks, doesn't he? But doesn't that just sum up Christmas? You go through all those presents and right at the end, tucked away at the bottom, there's always one stupid old Satsuma. Who wants a Satsuma?"

As they begun to make their way back inside, the leader stumbled to his feet. He grabbed the Doctor's abandoned sword and roared. His mistake. Charging at them, he didn't get further than a few steps. The Doctor tossed the orange at a switch on the side of the ship without even turning around, and the ground beneath the leader opened. He fell off the ship, through the clouds, to be left to the mercy of gravity.

Rey snuck a glance at the Doctor. His face was serious and his eyes were hard. "No second chances," he said. "I'm that sort of man."

Hesitating only for a moment, she reached out to hold his hand. His expression softened a little, the dangerous look in his eyes fading. Her own nerves finally calmed as well. The Doctor was here. He was alright. They were all going to be fine.

He addressed the remaining Sycorax from in front of the TARDIS. "By the ancient rites of combat, I forbid you to scavenge here for the rest of time. And when you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet… when you tell them of its riches—its people—its potential. When you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this: It. Is. Defended."

And then they teleported away, back down to the Powell estate. Quiet literally just around the corner from Rose's flat. Mickey laughed and jumped up and down when he realized this, but the Doctor held out his hand to calm him.

"Wait a minute… wait a minute…"

The ship that had still been hovering above them was suddenly back in flight, headed away.

"Go on, my son," Mickey exclaimed, throwing his fist in the air. "Oh, yeah!"

Rose joined in on his cheer, leaping on his back. "Yeah! Don't come back!"

"It is defended!"

As they and Alex, who was still in a state of shock over everything, celebrated, Harriet and the Doctor faced each other. She raised her arms, finally accepting him. "My Doctor."

"Prime Minister."

They hugged fiercely.

"Absolutely the same man. I never should have doubted, not with Rey here." The three of them gazed up at the sky together. "Are there many more out there?"

"Oh, not just Sycorax. Hundreds of species. Thousands of them. And the human race is drawing attention to itself. Every day you're sending out probes and messages and signals—this planet's so noisy. You're getting notices… more and more."

"Probably best to get used to it," Rey advised.

"Rose!" Jackie had found them.

"Oh! Talking of trouble…" The Doctor trailed off with a fond look on his face as they watched mother and daughter reunite.

"It was the tea," Rose exclaimed. "Fixed his head!"

"That was all I needed—cup o' tea."

"I said so!"

They chatted happily for a while longer, basking in the relief that everything had turned out alright. Rey felt something linger in the air, and turned to see Alex approach Harriet with a rather serious look on his face. Harriet tried to smile at her when she noticed Rey staring, but the intent didn't quite translate properly on her face.

Five beams of green light from different directions shot up at the sky. They met high in the clouds and, as one stronger beam, traveled up into space. Out of sight from all of them, the Sycorax ship was hit and destroyed.

"What is that," Rose asked. "What's happening?"

The Doctor looked from the sky to Harriet, realizing what she had done. "That was murder," he told her angrily.

"That was defense," she said rather coldly. "It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago."

"But they were leaving."

"You said it yourself, Doctor. They'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth. I'm sorry, Doctor, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today—Mr. Llewellyn and the Major. They were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case—we have to defend ourselves."

"Britain's Golden Age," he spat out, full of disdain.

"It comes with a price," she told him.

"I gave them the wrong warning. I should've told them to run—as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming: the human race." The Doctor's grip on Rey's hand was tight. She squeezed back, not sure if she was restraining him or he was restraining her. The anger and disgust was palpitable, coming off him in waves.

"Those are the people I represent," Harried said. "I did it on their behalf."

"Then I should've stopped you."

"What does that make you, Doctor? Another alien threat?"

"Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones," he warned, taking a step towards her. "'Cos I'm a completely new man. I could bring down your government with a single word."

"You're the most remarkable man I've ever me," Harried admitted. "But I don't think you're quiet capable of that."

"Six," Rey spoke up. "Not one. Six words." And the Doctor knew just what six words would work, she could see it in his stance. A lifetime around psychiatrists and psychologists had left her well versed in the field. For any electoral system, the opinion of others in power could be the most damning thing to a politician's career.

"I don't think so," Harried said.

"Six words," the Doctor repeated.

"Stop it!"

"Six." He stared at her for a few seconds. Then, seeing that she wouldn't back down, he walked around her to Alex, leaving Rey behind. Plucking off Alex's earpiece, he spoke six simple words so quietly into the mic that no one else could here.

_Don't you think she looks tired?_

Then, he rejoined Rey and the others. They left without a glance back, Harriet's demands he tell her what he'd said ringing in their ears.

* * *

It was a wonder how much a shower and change of clothes could make a person feel better. Rey stepped back into the wardrobe in her new attire with her hair still wet. She was looking forward to sleeping sometime soon, but washing up had rejuvenated her enough that she could probably get through another night if she had to.

In his own little section of the wardrobe, the Doctor was trying to find the perfect outfit. Bits from his previous regenerations were strewn about, hidden how she imagined people hid eggs on Easter. "Would you like a hint," she asked as he pushed a rack out of the way, not liking anything on it.

"Where would the fun in that be?"

"Alright then," she agreed, and took a seat. What would become his signature brown coat was hanging to her left.

Peaceful quiet elapsed between them as he rummaged and she found herself content to just watch. Tentatively, he held up what looked like a soldier's uniform in front of the mirror before shaking his head firmly "no," and tossing it in the corner.

"That's right, I meant to ask," he finally began, the tone of his voice purposefully pitched casual.

"Hmm?" It was warm in the TARDIS and she was relaxed from her shower. If he didn't finish soon, she'd end up falling asleep.

"I could still— I mean, it wasn't like I'd meant to but I—" He suddenly abandoned his search and came up to her, face serious. Kneeling in front of her, he didn't force the eye contact, but smiled when she met his gaze. "When I was unconscious I could still hear. I heard some of the things Rose said to you…"

"Ah." And here she'd thought it had been something serious. "Because of my situation, I've had people judging me since before even I can remember. I've had doctors decide they knew exactly what was wrong with me before they'd even met me. People who thought they were better because I'm the weirdo who's been locked in the crazy ward my whole life so what do I know. You don't have to worry. I'm used to it."

If anything, his frown deepened. Strange, what was troubling him now? She had thought it was all very clear.

Holding his gaze, she knew now that she had been too hasty when she ruled her feelings out to be like snowflakes. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call them clouds. Though they may gather and linger, they would still eventually dissipate, and even more quickly blow over. So what if she had feelings for him? Her feelings were her own business, and she would never act on them. It was okay to care for him now, she reasoned, just as long as she never told him.

The familiar sense of loss started up again. She felt more ready for it than she ever had before. "I'll see you soon," she told the Doctor, and jumped.

* * *

**Welcome to the first proper chapter of A Bloom of Clouds! I meant to have this out earlier, but rl has been hellish. Anyway, I hope you're all as excited as I am to see what happens in Rey's story. 'Till next time.**


	3. The Crimson Horror

For once, the Doctor was glad that Rey wasn't here.

The pain wasn't so bad, he'd certainly had worse before, but it was constant. If that wasn't bad enough, there was also the paralysis to also contend with. His limbs refused to move; he couldn't speak, could hardly _think_ past the poison that was inhibiting his synapses. That was what got to him more than anything. His heart beats were so slow and his lungs wouldn't expand all the way and his brain wasn't getting enough oxygen.

He shuddered to think what Rey's fate would've been had she been with them. Like him, shackled and trapped in his own body? Like Clara, frozen and posed as a doll under glass? Or maybe she wouldn't have survived the preservation process. The thought of Rey—his Rey—being dumped in the river, thrown away like worthless trash, made his sluggish blood boil.

No. He had gone without her. That was the way it had happened, and it was good. If he let himself start thinking about all if's and then's now he'd never stop. It was hard not to think about Rey—Rey, Rey, Rey, his hearts beat out her name—but he had to find a way out because if Rey jumped to him when he was like _this_…

Time in captivity passed slowly. With nothing to do, his mind turned inward, and when he was reflective, wall—that's when Rey could call him Marvin. She always said it with a small quirk of her lips to let him know she wasn't serious. He wasn't that bad off, her smile said to him, and her hand in his promised that she would stay, and her eyes promised that she would listen if he felt like talking. But Rey wasn't here—thankfully—and there was no one to stop him from being Marvin.

He was doing a terrible job not thinking about her. He tried, alright? The Doctor tried, but three weeks was a long time for a Time Lord to ruminate, and he still had some sense of self-preservation despite what others may think. Time and time again, his thoughts wandered back to Rey. He thought about the first time he saw her, all those centuries ago. He thought about the last time he saw her, just before this trip to Yorkshire with Clara. She had been so young and inexperienced, and yet still exactly the same as always. Thinking about her like that reminded him of his early days of traveling with her.

It was only after the Time War—no, don't think about that either—that she started to jump and stay with him more regularly. Those days always made him feel a little ashamed. He should've paid more attention to how things were between her and Rose. He should've stepped in earlier, made it clearer from the start that Rey was non-negotiable. Rose—what a stormy mess of regards he had towards her—had helped him so much in those early days, but he had been blind to her faults until they'd slapped him in the face. He was so caught up in having a companion again, one who experienced things as linearly as he did, that he'd just ignored all the things he hadn't wanted to deal with.

Linear. That was a hoot. A linear Time Lord? But compared to Rey, he was laughably, painfully so.

The worst part about it was that she didn't blame him. She didn't even see that he had done something wrong. To Rey, her relationship with Rose was between the two of them. Never mind that he had been a huge factor in why Rose treated her like she had. But Rey—and he had never been one for religious comparisons, but she had taken it all in like a saint—had never once resented him. She didn't even resent Rose. Sometimes, her casual acceptance of all the wrongs done to her made him so _mad_.

Not at her, of course. Never at her. At the universe. At those responsible. Sometimes it felt like he was carrying her share of the outrage with how much he was bursting with it, but then he'd remember everything she'd gone through and no, it was nowhere near how much anger was deserved.

Oh, he was getting worked up again. The chains rattled; it was harder to keep his shaking limbs under control when he was upset. That was something else that needed working on. That, and coming up with an escape plan. He needed to regain control of his body, save Clara, and stopped this mad scheme before Rey got herself involved.

The now familiar clinking of wood against the ground reminded him of just how difficult escape was going to be.

Ada was back.

* * *

The house was beautiful. Very Victorian, but that was the current era, so it wasn't a surprise. But Rey was a little confused and, to be honest, starting to feel creeped out. There didn't seem to be anyone else there with her. The eerie silence was unnerving; it made the corridors seem looming and every piece of decor feel colder. Where was everyone? Rey had landed away from the Doctor before, but he was always nearby, or one of the companions was.

"What are you doing here, boy?"

Spinning to face the intersecting corridor, she barely managed to bite back a yelp. It was embarrassing to be snuck up on so easily. She had trained herself from a young age to subconsciously keep her ears peeled for the sounds of impending arrival—shuffling clothes, creaking floorboards, the scuff of shoes against linoleum—but this time she'd been caught completely unawares.

She hadn't even sensed an emotional shift, which was especially odd when there was so little other input around her.

The owner of the loud, blunt voice, was alien, that much was obvious. He was short, stocky, and very bald. She was immensely grateful for her poker face not revealing her thoughts because, to be honest, he looked very much like a thumb with a face, arms, and legs. The lack of eyebrows was weird, but Rey had seen weirder, so she didn't let it get to her. Weirder like the butler's garb he wore, which begged two questions: what was he doing here and who was he here with?

Oh, and he had a blaster trained on her too.

"I'm a girl," she corrected. "I'm Rey."

"Are you sure?"

Did he mean to ask if she sure she was a girl or if she was sure she was Rey? "Yes."

"Did you do something to your head? I'm certain that it should be shorter."

A shorter head—oh, he meant hair. Her hand came up to come through hers. It was getting long, the ends were starting to stretch past her shoulder blades, the thought of cutting it hadn't occurred to her. "You're probably remembering a future me. I'm rather certain I haven't met you yet."

His stance was sure, and his arms didn't so much as twitch. If she hadn't known any better, she would've claimed to be facing a machine instead of a person. Straight back, legs shoulder-width apart—military training of some sort for sure. More than anything, it was his emotional reaction that caught her interest. No anger, the faintest smidge of curiosity, a healthy amount of suspicious, but not as much as you'd expect from someone coming upon an intruder in their home.

He looked at her like he was debating just shooting her anyway, just to be done with things. Just in case. Just because it would be easier.

The casual disregard wasn't as insulting as she thought it would've been. Rey was pretty sure he was a Sontaran, which explained the gun and callousness. Still, the standoff was dragging out.

"Do you know where the Doctor is?" The question would either prompt him to shoot if he was an enemy or hold him off if he wasn't. She was fairly confident she could dodge if it was the former. There was plenty of furniture to hide behind, and it was a big house. If there was one good thing that came out of all the chaos of their adventures, it was that she had a lot of practice with running.

Thankfully, it didn't come down to that.

"Strax! What are you doing? Put that silly thing away, you're not shooting Rey."

"I'd appreciate that," Rey said genuinely.

The amount of hurt and discouragement Strax felt at those words were at odds with his previous lack of reaction. He pet the gun as if it were sentient, reminding her of how the Doctor got whenever someone insulted his sonic. Boys and their toys.

The woman, she introduced herself as Jenny when Rey told her this was their first meeting on her part, was definitely human. She wasn't surprised or confused at the notion of time travel, but given that she lived with at least one alien, it must've been par for course for her. She was also annoyed at Strax's antics, as well as entirely unimpressed. Rey got the feeling that they had had too many interactions just like this to count.

Jenny ushered her into the conservatory. Waiting there was the third and final member of the household. Vasta was beautiful. Her skin reminded Rey of jade—mostly green with undertones of yellow and brown. She wore her Victorian dress like it was armour and she was a queen that had subdued a war. Her painting held so much emotion that Rey hardly needed to look at it to feel the love she had for Jenny. She looked surprised to see Rey, but not shocked.

"I found her in the west wing, dear," Jenny relayed. "Straw had a gun to her."

"Of course he did," Vastra said with the same exasperation Jenny had felt earlier. "Rey, come and sit. Jenny, could you fetch us some tea?"

She put the finishing touches on her painting before setting the brush down and taking a seat across from Rey. It was clear now the roles they had fallen into—Vastra as the lady of the house, Jenny the maid, and Strax the butler. How thoroughly these roles were acted out for the outside world, she couldn't tell yet. While Vastra was clearly the leader, she was sure they dynamics were much more fluid and… strange for Victorian sensibilities.

Then again, Victorian sensibilities. Enough said.

They waited until after the tea was served to start. Vastra took out a photograph and laid it face down on the table before sliding it over.

Rey placed her cup back on its saucer with a quiet _clink_. All talk of the current era's values aside, she felt like a character in a period piece. All that was missing was the dress—probably a good thing—and the Doctor.

"Now that you're here, there is no doubt in my mind that the Doctor is in grave danger. This was delivered to me yesterday. I take it you're familiar with the concept of optography."

"The idea that the last image seen when alive can be retrieved from a corpse's eye. It's a very popular belief for this time, but just fiction unless the chemical composition of the eye in question is massively corrupted. Is that what the photograph is of?"

"I believe you should take a look for yourself."

She reached for the slip of paper and turned it over. The image was an extreme close up, and the quality left much to be desired, but the subject was unmistakable. Reflected in the pupil was the Doctor.

He was in bad shape. His skin was shaded as if it had been dyed, and his face was contorted in pain and horror, but it was too stiff, like he couldn't control his muscles. Rey had to stop herself from crumpling the photo in her hand. Or demanding to be brought to him right away.

"Corpses have been washing up, their skin dyed red and their faces frozen in terror. The people have been calling it the Crimson Horror. No doubt, the Doctor was caught up in investigating the case. The brother of a reporter who was a victim gave me this photograph. He claims that there is a connection with Sweetville."

Not for the first time, Rey cursed that her jumping was random. If she had arrived earlier, maybe the Doctor wouldn't be like this. "Why did you say now that I was here you were sure he was in danger? Isn't this evidence enough?"

"It must be early for you. Or haven't you noticed yet that you never jump to the Doctor when doing so could end your life?"

Rey stayed quiet. Honestly, she'd had her suspicions. It was easy to see the pattern of her jumps. She arrived in dull moments or periods of calm in between adventures. Baring that, she never jumped in the path of a weapon, in an inhospitable environment, or even when doing so might cause whoever was around to react violently.

That time on New Earth, she had appeared safely in the car with Martha rather than outside in the toxic fumes. Once, the Doctor had been in the middle of a showdown in a decompressing airlock, and she had landed safely three corridors away. It was only Rose's quick thinking that saved him. On some level, it made sense. Every creature had some innate survival instinct.

"Tell me more about Sweetville."

"Intended to be a utopian community according to my research. It's proprietor holds recruitment drives. She's only interested in the fittest and most beautiful."

Not Rey, then, who was only mildly in shape and didn't fit the mold for western conventions of attractiveness. Still, there wasn't any harm in scouting, and Jenny insisted on coming with. Rey didn't protest. She could use the help, and some things were safer in pairs.

"If these weak and fleshy boys are to represent us, I strongly recommend the issuing of scissor grenades, limbo vapor, and triple-blast brain splitters," Strax told them.

"What for," Vastra asked.

"Just generally. Remember, we are going to the North."

"Let's not bring those," Rey recommended. "Do you have anything less conspicuous?"

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long for the next recruitment drive. Mrs. Gillyflower and the mysterious Mr. Sweet were the masterminds behind Sweetville. If the name itself didn't have a sickening quality to it, the speech Rey was forced to sit through made her feel downright nauseous. Mrs. Gillyflower preached about the forthcoming apocalypse. Only the pure would survive, and only those accepted into Sweetville were pure.

Nothing like a cult to bring in the masses, and the people were lining up to be accepted.

Like the Doctor and Clara had, Jenny opted for the front door approach. Rey went through the side. Sweetville's security was slightly excessive, but it was nothing compared to what she was used to. If the hospital was like a fortress and Nevermore a maze, then Sweetville was an open field. That being said, she made sure to remain cautious. Cockiness got people killed, and she had rarely had to sneak into places rather than sneaking out.

Echoing sounds of machinery filled the factory floor and made Rey wish for earplugs. Strangely enough, the vibrations she felt weren't consistent with that sort of heavy work. Upon closer inspection, she found three speakers blaring the sort of noise that naturally got on people's nerves. She quickly left that section of the room, doubling back towards the spiral staircase she'd passed earlier. Taking the lift would be too risky—anyone could be on the other side when she got off, and anyone could call it while she was still on. Besides, almost everyone would choose it over the stairs, which meant she'd be less likely to run into any guards climbing by foot.

As she was about to pass through to the second floor, she caught a glimpse of men carrying a large glass flask. The liquid inside was a strong red color, though now having seen it in person, she thought it was more of a carmine than crimson.

Continuing up, she peaked out on the third floor. A heavy door stood at the far end of the corridor with a round window embedded. It was too far to make out anything, but both the window and the slight gap between the door and its frame were the same red as whatever was contained in the flask. Before she could investigate, she heard the sound of the lift traveling up. She decided to come back later, not wanting to be around if someone was stopping on this floor. Taking the stairs further up, this time she went all the way to the attic. Traditionally, there were only two things people stored in attics: junk and secrets.

Clanging echoed from the other side of the door. Rey approached cautiously. There was no window to look into now, but there was a panel built into the bottom like a cat flap. She opened it to look inside and had just enough time to rear back to dodge the red hand that came reaching out. The clanging intensified, accompanied by the sounds of groans.

She knew that voice.

"Doctor?"

The noise stopped. Then, a single tap. It was the most basic of nonverbal communication methods—once for yes, twice for no.

"Hold on, I'll get you out."

The door was, predictably, locked, but that was easily remedied. The telltale click sounded thirty seconds later. She was getting rusty; thirty seconds was more than enough time to get caught were she on a tighter patrol schedule.

"Oh, Doctor." It really was him behind the door. Red dyed his skin, and he had manacles wrapped around his wrists, keeping him chained to the pipe at the back of the room. His movements were jerky—his joints had locked in glace. He reached for her awkwardly, trying to vocalize but unable to move his mouth and tongue to form proper words.

She took one of his hands in hers, squeezing gently. Even through the gloves, she could tell something was wrong. It felt too glossy, almost like a freshly waxed floor, and his hand was too cold and hard. His clothes were lying in a pile on the floor, leaving him in dirty undergarments that had once been white. "I'm getting you out of here," she assured him, and picked the locks to his cuffs in record time. She was helping him back to the staircase when they came across Jenny.

"You found him," she quietly exclaimed. "But what's happened to him?"

"I think someone tried to preserve him, but the process failed halfway." The Doctor jerked and groaned, and she almost lost her hold on him. Jenny quickly came to his other side to help keep them up. "We need to move."

They took the stairs as quickly as they could, but it was still far slower than Rey preferred. Halfway down, she heard footsteps, and they scurried into the corridor. The Doctor jerked again in their hold, trying to get them to look through the large window behind them. The red liquid she'd seen men carrying earlier bubbled in a huge vat. A large, automated rack extended out over it. Six people, all limp and likely unconscious, hung from it. They were dipped in like bread into fondue.

"Oh my God," Jenny gasped. So that was what happened to the Doctor. Rey would bet anything that the vat was filled with some sort of preservation fluid. The success rate probably wasn't a hundred percent, and those that were deemed failures were dumped to be carried away by the river.

The Doctor waved his arm wildly, gesturing to something at the end of the corridor. They brought him into a strange locker set into the wall, almost like a steam chamber. Rey handed him his clothes and the sonic after helping him inside. Then, she pulled Jenny back with her to duck in a small alcove as two workers walked by.

Strange sounds came from inside the locker, and a green light shone through the panels. When the door opened, out popped the Doctor, dressed and no longer red. "Ah! Missed me?"

"Yes," Rey unabashedly admitted. He smiled fondly at her, squeezing her hand gently.

"Oh, Rey. What would I do without you? And Jenny! My favourite Victorian chambermaid!" He hugged her fiercely, lifting her feel clear off the floor before setting her back down. "You have no idea how good I feel right now. Right! Mrs. Gillyflower! We've got to stop her! And then there's Clara. Poor Clara. Where's Clara?"

"Clara," Jenny asked, confused.

"We need to find her," Rey agreed. "But first, catch us up? How long were you trapped up there like that?"

"Don't know," he lied, and then quickly continued with his story before she could call him out on it. "Long story, I'll keep it short."

The short of it was: the Doctor, Clara, and a Rey older than she was now were out for a fun day in Yorkshire. Rey had jumped away before the other two stumbled upon the case of the Crimson Horror and decided to investigate Sweetville. They went in undercover, were forced into the vat, and when the Doctor was discarded into the reject pile, Mrs. Gillyflower's daughter Ada discovered that he was still alive and moved him to the attic.

"Poor Edmund—" the reporter that had clued them into everything and who's optogram Vastra had showed Rey— "must have come looking for us. And then fallen into a vat of the pure venom. Or was pushed. Didn't stand a chance."

"What is it? Some kind of toxin?"

"Deadly poison," he explained as they walked. Windows lined up the corridor, and the Doctor scanned each with the sonic. "And Mrs. Gillyflower's dipping her pilgrims in a dilute form to protect them. Preserve them. Process didn't work on me. Maybe because I'm not human. I ended up on the reject pile."

"Preserve them against what," Jenny asked.

"The coming apocalypse, probably," Rey said dryly. "Though the question remains: does she think one is really coming or is she planning one herself?"

The Doctor pointed at her. "Exactly. My money's on the latter."

"Mrs. Gillyflower said something in one of her sermons. 'When the End of Days is come and judgment rains down upon us all,'" Jenny quoted. "Madame will come looking for me. We'd best get on."

"Yes! Clara, got to find Clara."

"But, Doctor… Clara's dead, isn't she," Jenny asked as they picked up the pace.

"What," Rey asked, heart jolting.

"Shhh! Spoilers," he told Jenny intently, not so subtly jerking his head towards Rey. "It's complicated."

They entered the courtyard. Night had fallen, but that only helped them to stay hidden in this case. "I couldn't see much from where I was, but I think she survived the process. She must be here somewhere," he told Rey.

Small houses, identical in structure, stood far enough away from the main building that they'd be none the wiser of what was really going on had they not just come from there. One by one, they checked all the windows. It was like looking into life-sized dollhouses. Set up inside, like a recreation in a museum, were couples. A huge bell jar covered them—a hobbyist's way of protecting their meticulously put together work. In one of these scenes, Clara sat in a chair with a man standing by her side. Both were petrified, frozen completely still.

Rushing inside, the Doctor tried pounding on the glass to break it. Rey grabbed another chair, wooden but sturdy. "Stand back."

The glass shattered noisily, but the couple remained frozen. Even when the Doctor slapped Clara in an attempt to wake her, all it did was hurt his hand. In the end, the picked her up and carried her back to the booth that had healed the Doctor.

"Can she be revived, like you were," Jenny asked.

"I hope so."

"We've got company," Rey warned. Mrs. Gillyflower's pilgrims, as she referred to them as, were up and about, and they'd had found them.

"Oh, great," the Doctor snarked. "Great. Attack of the supermodels." As always, the situation got worse before it got better. The crowd pulled out wooden sticks to bludgeon them with. "Time for a plan."

"Nah, Doctor, Rey. This one's on me." Jenny stepped forward and removed her bonnet and the skirt of her dress with flourish. She wore a catsuit beneath, still very much in the style of Victorian fashion. As the first few pilgrims attacked, she expertly took them down.

Rey's hand went down to the baton she had strapped to her thigh. While she had worn an era-appropriate dress for the sermon, she had thrown it off as soon as she slipped away, leaving her in a top a little tighter than she preferred, and, thankfully, trousers. She had been serious about less conspicuous weapons back in Vastra's house. To the Doctor's likely disapproval, she also had a few knives and a bracelet with a hidden blade on her.

"That's a plan," the Doctor cheered as Jenny took down three pilgrims in rapid succession.

The remainder began tapping their clubs against their hands in a threatening manner.

"Okay. Time for a new plan." One hand grabbed Jenny's and the other grabbed Rey's. He pulled them both back with him to the door on the other end of the corridor, only to back away from that as well when they heard footsteps from the other side.

Rey knew those steps. After her embarrassment in the corridor, she had seared the sound of them into her memory so it would never happen again. She managed to pull the Doctor and Jenny to the side just in time before Strax entered and fired his gun at where they once were.

The pilgrims fled at the sight of reinforcements.

Vastra was with Strax and urged them to go. "No ma'am," Jenny protested. "We're not escaping! We've got to help the Doctor and Rey with Clara!"

Rey recognized the look Vastra shot the Doctor instantly. _What did you do this time_ was nearly as common and identical to _stop being unreasonable_ and _again, —-? We talked about this_. Both held a certain amount of exasperation. Unlike all of Rey's experiences, Vastra's expression also had a fondness to it.

"Long story," the Doctor said quickly, embarrassed.

He and Rey quickly went back to check on Clara. Behind her, she heard Strax excitedly come up with suggestions for their next step. "We could lay mimetic cluster mines. Or dig trenches and fill them with acid."

"Strax! You're overexcited. Have you been eating Miss Jenny's sherbet fancies again," Vastra scolded.

"No."

"Go outside and wait for me until I call you," she ordered.

He offered a token protest, then obeyed dejectedly.

"When do we meet them," Rey asked as the Doctor scanned the chamber with the sonic. She decided that she liked them.

"Hmm, a while ago for me, not for a while for you," he replied with a fond smile. The edges were still strained; she could tell that his time in captivity had taken a toll on him. He was clearly trying to pretend everything was fine, and she decided not to push. Still, she made a note to convince him to take it easy for a while instead of letting him overcompensate and get into something even more outrageous.

"Okay, I think she's about done. I know who you think she is," he said to Vastra and Jenny, "but she isn't. She can't be."

"I was right, then," Vastra said. "You two and Clara have unfinished business."

He opened the door and she fell forward, nearly to the ground before he caught her. "Hello, stranger."

"Doctor?" She tapped his nose.

"Uh-huh."

"Rey. You're back!"

"More like here again for the first time," she corrected.

Clara offered her a smile, then caught sight of Vastra and Jenny. "Hi," she said uncertainly. "What's going on?"

"Haven't you heard," the Doctor asked in a northern accent. "There's trouble a t'mill." In his regular voice he added, "She's a lizard."

"Don't be rude to Vastra," Rey admonished. "I like her." Amy's comment about Silurians made much more sense now.

Vasta may have been reptilian, but she looked very much like the cat that had gotten to cream. As they headed for the lift, she explained what the red liquid was. "My people once ruled this world, as well you know. But we did not rule it alone. Just as humanity fights a daily battle against nature, so did we. And our greatest plague, the most virulent enemy was the repulsive red leech."

"Ooh! The repulsive red leech," the Doctor gushed. "Nah. On balance, I think I prefer the Crimson Horror. What was it exactly?"

"A tiny parasite. It infected our drinking water. And once in your system, it secreted a fatal poison."

"If it's been hanging around, lurking in the shadows, maybe it's evolved," he suggested. "Or maybe it's had help."

"Doctor, I've been thinking, the chimney," Clara began.

He waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way past that now! Yucky red parasite from the time of the dinosaurs pitches up in Victorian Yorkshire. Didn't see that one coming!"

Actually, now that Clara mentioned the chimney, Rey recalled Mrs. Gillyflower's sermon. She said judgment would rain down on them. It could have been a metaphor, but it was curious. It made her think of fire—wasn't that what people said? Fire and brimstone would rain down. Any they were in a match factory. Factories required a lot of coal to power their machines, coal that needed to be burned. But the machinery noises were faked and the chimney didn't blow smoke…

"It's not a chimney, it's a launch pad," she realized.

The Doctor, cut off mid-sentence, looking at her curiously. So was everyone else. "Clever clogs," he said.

"Did you miss me," she teased.

He took her hand. "I always miss you."

The lift alighted and they rode it to the ground floor. Workers were everywhere—they had to dash to hide behind some off-cast machinery so they wouldn't be noticed. Whether by coincidence or because their presence had moved up the timeline, Mrs. Gillyflower was moving forward with stage two of her plan.

"She's going to poison the air," the Doctor explained.

"How?"

"With that, I should think." Clara pointed to the huge rocket, newly revealed.

Two pilgrims uncovered a basket housing the huge flask of red liquid Rey had seen earlier. "And there's the poison," the Doctor noted. "Alright gang, I've got a plan."

It wasn't a bad plan. Actually, it was one of his tamer ones. They separated, Jenny and Vastra to sabotage the rocket and the Doctor, Rey, and Clara back to the main building. Ada wept in the corner by herself, startling when she heard them. "Who's that? Who is there?"

The Doctor kneeled in front of her and lifted her hand to his face. "You. It's you! My monster." She cupped his face between both her hands. "You've come back! But you're…"

"Warm," he finished. "And alive. Thanks to you, Ada. You saved me from your mother's human rubbish tip. Now, what's wrong?"

"She does not want me, monster! I am not to be chosen. Perhaps it was my own sin, the blackness in my heart, that my father saw in me."

"Ada, no," he said gently but firmly. "That's nonsense. Stupid, backwards nonsense, and you know it. You know it." He cupped her face. A thumb rubbed gently over the scars by her eyes.

"What is it," Clara asked.

"Who is that?"

"I'm… I'm a friend," she told the other woman, kneeling beside the Doctor. "There's three of us here. Friends of his."

"Then you are fortunate, indeed. It isn't good to be alone."

"Now, Ada, I need you to tell me something—who is Mr. Sweet," the Doctor asked her.

Ada pulled back. "Oh, dear monster…"

"Please. Tell me."

"I cannot! Even now, I cannot! I cannot betray Mama."

"Well, come with us, then." He stood and placed a hand on her shoulder. "There's something you need to know."

They headed straight for the parlor, the Doctor leading the way. Rey and Clara were right behind him, Ada out of sight so she could hear the truth. Mrs. Gillyflower chuckled when she saw them, completely unperturbed. "You do seem to keep turning up like a bad penny, young man."

"Force of habit."

"Can I offer you something? Tea? Seed cake? A glass of Amontillado?"

"No, thanks. We've had a skinful already, as you might say," he reflexively joked.

"Ha! Very funny."

"I'm the Doctor, you're nuts, and we're going to stop you."

"I'm afraid Mr. Sweet and I cannot allow that," Mrs. Gillyflower said calmly.

"Oh, yes. Would it be impolite to ask why you and Mr. Sweet are petrifying your workforce with diluted prehistoric leech venom?"

"So when do we get to meet him," Clara added. "This silent partner of yours? Why's he so shy?"

"Mr. Sweet is always with us," Mrs. Gillyflower said vaguely.

"In the spiritual sense," Rey asked. "Or is he physically here? You two seem to have a very close relationship."

"Oh, yes. Exceedingly close. Symbiotic, you might say." Mrs. Gillyflower unbuttoned the top of her gown and pulled the cloth open to reveal a large red leech attached to her sternum area. It turned its head at the feeling of being exposed, revealing a circular mouth filled with sharp teeth. Then it turned back and continued to feed.

As much as she wanted to, Rey couldn't look away. "Doctor… What is that," Clara asked uneasily beside her.

"A survivor," Mrs. Gillyflower adamantly answered. "He has grown fat on the filth humanity has pumped into the rivers. That's where I found him."

"Very enterprising," the Doctor said.

"That's one way to put it," Rey agreed. Personally, she would have used the word disgusting.

"His needs are simple. And in return, he gives me his nectar."

The Doctor took a seat beside her. "Mrs. Gillyflower, you have no idea what you're dealing with! In the wrong hands, that venom could wipe out all life on this planet!"

She held out her hands in front of her. "Do you know what these are? The wrong hands!" Then she giggled and moved over to the other side of the room and pulled a lever. The chimney was visible from the parlor room window, and they could see it light up now like a Christmas tree.

"Planning a little fireworks party, are we?"

"You've forced me to advance the Great Work somewhat, Doctor. But my colossal scheme remains as it was. My rocket will explode high in the atmosphere, raining down Mr. Sweet's beneficence onto all humanity," she raved.

"And wiping us all out! You can't," Clara protested. She made a move towards Mrs. Gillyflower, but Rey stopped her with an extended arm.

"My new Adam and Eves will sleep for but a few months before stepping out into a golden dawn." Clasping her hands gleefully together, she asked, "Is it not beautiful, Doctor?"

The Doctor clapped and asked about Ada, catching Mrs. Gillyflower off guard. "Your daughter. You do remember your daughter? Tell us about your daughter."

"How can you speak of such trivia when my hour is at hand? The child is of no consequence."

"Is that why you experimented on her," Rey asked. Her gut burned with anger. It wasn't until Mrs. Gillyflower had showed them Mr. Sweet that she realized what had happened, but it all made sense. She didn't care about anyone else but herself and her "partner."

"Experimented," Clara echoed.

"The signs are all there," the Doctor explained. His thumb rubbed small circles into Rey's inner wrist. "The pattern of the scarring. You used her as a guinea pig, didn't you?"

"God!"

"Sometimes, sacrifices must be made," Mrs. Gillyflower said offhandedly.

"Sacrifices?"

"It was necessary! I had to find out how much of the venom would produce and anti-toxin. To immunize myself! Don't you see? It was necessary!"

It was then that Ada made herself known. Her voice was shaky and thin as she first asked, then realized the truth. "It is. It's true. True."

"Ada, listen to me," Mrs. Gillyflower began, stepping towards her.

Ada's shock quickly became anger as she crossed the distance between them if a few swift steps. "You hag! You perfidious hag! You virago! You harpy! All these years, I have helped you, served you. Looked out for you. Does it could for nothing? Nothing at all?" She struck her mother with her cane, pouring all her hurt into the action.

"Stop, stop," Mrs. Gillyflower yelled, putting her arms up to defend herself. Ada hesitated, and she leaned heavily against the door.

Clara picked up a chair. "Hang on, I've got the sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said.

"Yeah? I've got a chair!" She threw it at the rocket controls before he could say anything else. Sparks flew from the console as it was crushed.

"No!"

"Yeah. That worked. I'm afraid your rocket isn't going anywhere, Mrs. G."

Mrs, Gillyflower glared viciously at them for a moment before zeroing in on her daughter. "Please, come to me, Ada. My child." She pulled her into a hug, feigning guilt. "You have always been so very… useful." With the last word she pulled out a hidden revolver and held it to Ada's head.

"Please, Mama," Ada begged, tears still streaming down her face. "No more. No more."

Mrs. Gillyflower ignored her daughter's words. "And now, if you'll please forgive us, we must be going. It is long past Ada's bedtime!" She shoved Ada through the exit, making sure to keep her close as a human shield. The door closed behind her and locked before Clara could get to it.

"Stop, Clara," Rey told her. "She'll shoot Ada on the spot if we follow right away."

"She wouldn't," Clara protested.

"Yes, she would. You know she would."

The Doctor let go of her hand to pick up a chair of his own. "Chairs are useful," he said, exchanging a grin with both of them before charging at the window. He knocked out as much glass as he could, then laid his jacket over the ledge so they could climb out without getting cut. Rey landed on her feet in a crouch outside before running towards the chimney. Mrs. Gillyflower had a fairly large head start, but she was slowed down by having to drag Ada. They caught up to them at a powerbox on the stairs.

"Just let her go, Mrs. Gillyflower," the Doctor implored. "Let Ada go!"

"Secondary firing mechanism, Doctor," she gloated, completely ignoring his words. "Mr. Sweet and I are too smart for you after all."

"Just let your daughter go," he repeated.

Ada broke from her grip and fell to the landing. She used the handrail to hold herself up, tensing at the sound of the revolver being cocked. "Shoot if you wish, Mama. It is of matter, for you killed me a long time ago!"

The Doctor darted forward, but Mrs. Gillyflower shot at him. Rey tugged him back by his coat, and he hunched over her, shielding her from any potential bullets. "I'll labour night and day to be a pilgrim," the old woman sang as she pulled the lever. While she was distracted, they ran over to Ada.

Noisily, so noisily, the rocket launched into the air. "Now, Mr. Sweet, now the whole world will taste your lethal kiss!"

"I don't think so, Mrs. Gillyflower." The Doctor clicked his fingers. On the landing above them, Vastra and Jenny appeared, holding the flask of venom.

She let out a shriek at the sight of her foiled plans. "Very well, then. If I can't take the world with you, you will have to do. Die, you freaks! Die! Die!" All reason lost, she fired wildly up at them.

Rey pulled out the collapsible baton and extended it. Flipping her grip, she took aim and threw it at Mrs. Gillyflower. It struck its mark, knocking the revolver from her hand.

"Nice shot," the Doctor cheered.

"Stand down, human female!" Strax's arrival was a surprise to them all. He was up at the top of the chimney, gun aimed at Mrs. Gillyflower like a sniper. When she foolishly reached for the fallen gun, he fired and she fell off the stairs, over the railing, and down, down, down to the ground floor.

"Ouch!" the Doctor winced. He, Rey, Clara, Jenny, and Vastra ran down the stairs to her. Mr. Sweet had detached from her body and was starting to crawl away. Surprisingly, Mrs. Gillyflower was still alive. She was tough for an old lady. When she realized that her partner was leaving her, she cried out to it. "No… No! Mr. Sweet? Where are you going? You can't leave me now, Mr. Sweet."

"What's it doing," Clara asked.

"It knows she's dying and has decided she's no longer useful," Rey explained.

"Mr. Sweet!" Slowly, Ada made her way down the stars to them. Her cane tapped against the steps, signaling her presence. "Ada? Ada. Are you there?"

"I'm here, Mama," she responded, kneeling beside her fallen mother.

"Forgive me, my child. Forgive me."

"Never," Ada vowed.

Strangely, this seemed to make Mrs. Gillyflower proud. "That's my girl," she managed to say, and those were her last words.

The rocket exploded, lighting up the sky with a show of oranges and reds. "What will you do with that thing," Jenny asked, gesturing to Mr. Sweet.

"Take it back to the Jurassic era, maybe," the Doctor said. "Out of harm's way."

Ada walked across the floor, searching for something with her cane. When it landed on Mr. Sweet, she viciously beat him until he was torn to pieces. "Or there's that," Rey remarked drly.

Problem solved.

It was a long night of freeing everyone and reversing the preservation process, and they didn't finish until long after dawn. By the time it was over, Rey was more than ready to leave Sweetville. The police could figure out what they wanted to do with the community. It would probably go down as a crazy conspiracy—who would believe an old lady wanted to bring about the apocalypse using a rocket and poison from a red leech?

"Right, London," the Doctor suddenly remembered as they came up to the TARDIS. "We were heading for London, weren't we?"

"Was there any particular reason," Clara asked.

"No. No. just thought you might… like it."

She glanced back at Ada. "Yeah. Maybe had enough Victorian values for a bit."

"You're the boss," he said with a shrug.

Clara leaned out of the TARDIS doorway. "Am I?"

"No. No… If it's anyone, it's Rey. Get in." He waited until she was back inside before walking up to Ada. "Now, I'd love to stay and clear up the mess, but…"

"I know, dear monster, you have things to do," she said with a faint smile. She had come out of everything alright, pulling through with an amazing display of inner strength.

"And what about you," Rey asked her.

"Oh, there are many things a bright young lady can do to occupy her time. It's time I stepped out of the darkness and into the light."

"Good luck, Ada. You know, I think you'll be just splendid." He kissed her cheek softly before going over to Vastra, Jenny and Strax. "Well, thanks a million, you three, as ever. Have some Pontefract cakes on me. I love Pontefract cakes! See you around, eh? I shouldn't wonder."

Jenny ran after their retreating backs. "But, Doctor, Rey, that girl—Clara. You haven't explained."

"No, I haven't," he agreed, and continued to lead Rey to the TARDIS. "Ah, look at the muck in her! Right! Off we go. Any place in mind? After we drop Clara off, of course."

"You never did take me to see 'The Lion King…'"

* * *

**To anyone reading this, thank you for your patience. I honestly meant to have this chapter out a lot sooner, but life took a look at the holidays, decided they weren't stressful enough, and got creative. Anyway, I hope you guys like Rey's assessment of the Paternoster Gang. I have big things planned for her in this installment which should (hopefully) start getting hinted at within the next few chapters. I'm curious if any of you have any theories? I'd love to hear them if you'd like to share.**


	4. Aliens in London

"How many times are we going to end up hoping for our lives?"

"You mean you've done this before," Rory asked, shouting to be heard over the sound of blaster fire.

The Doctor landed badly, bumping shoulders with him and nearly knocking them both to the ground. Rey's arm shot out to steady him, and between the three of them, they all managed to stay upright. Good thing too, since the floor was booby trapped. The Monaxians were monopedal cyborgs and as clever as they were cute. They'd had the brilliant idea to install sensors into the ground so any gait that didn't match up to theirs was registered as an intruder's and incinerated.

"Antiok—the planet, not the city. Great cooks. The soup is to die for," the Doctor said. "But ask for some pepper and…"

"Critiquing the chef is a capital offense," Rey explained. She, the Doctor, and Rose had immediately been bound hand and foot and dumped in a cell. The sonic had been useless against all the wood-based materials. And yes, she was still not over the swamp.

"Actually, by my count this is the fifth time."

"_What_?" She still had to do this three more times?

"Halt," a squeaky voice commanded. It echoed throughout the entire city. "Lay your weapons down and cease all attempts to flee."

"You know, they're a lot less adorable now shooting at us," Rory remarked.

The blaster fire intensified. "I think that's the point," the Doctor said, and they picked up the pace. "Have you found Amy?"

Rey led them left, ducking behind a tall building for cover. On cue, the scanner beeped. "North tower, Block E." She turned the screen; the elliptical writing was starting to give her a cramp in her neck. "Sacrificial Wing."

"Sacrificial as in _sacrifice_," Rory asked.

The Doctor nearly knocked him over as he leaned to get a better look. "No! Well, yes, but that's okay. We're close."

She righted the screen.

He paled. "Okay, not close, but it's still okay."

"Doctor," she protested.

"How is it still okay," Rory asked.

A heavy boom echoed in the near distance. Moments later, the entire block began rumbling as a fifteen meter tall robot rose out of the ground. Rey's heart skipped a beat at the shaking, but she clamped down on her nerves and pulled up the schematics of the lower levels.

"I have an idea."

The Doctor pointed at her. "See? Okay. Rey has an idea. Her ideas are awesome."

A loud, high-pitched whine signaled that the huge robot's blaster was powering up. She snuck a look back through the windows. The Monaxian forces were gathering in a firing line behind the robot. "I wouldn't call this one awesome."

With a deafening boom, the building to the right exploded. Two more explosions, one further right and one to the left echoed quickly after. Rubble and debris showered over them. As long as they stayed still, the sensors wouldn't be able to pinpoint their location, but that left them as little more than sitting ducks.

"Any plan would be an improvement right now."

Rory yelped and ducked as a lucky blast shot through the window next to his head. The longer they waiting, the more reinforcements would arrive.

"There's a shortcut through the sewers, but the access point's a bit tricky."

"Sewers, great. Love a sewer. Never thought I'd say that, but in this case…"

"Where's the access point," Rory asked.

She nodded at the still open ground fifty yards away.

"How are we supposed to get there?!"

"Do you still have the rope they used to tie us up," the Doctor asked. He was squinting up where an intricate gargoyle stood sentinel at the edge of the building behind them. The Monaxians apparently favored a lot of rooftop decorations.

Two minutes later, they were swinging through the air while the ground forces kept firing at them. By some combination of luck and shortsight, the air troops hadn't been deployed yet. The robot was hoping towards them, blaster reloading, but if there was one downfall to its size, it was how slow it moved.

"Where did you learn to lasso," Rory shouted.

"Egypt, 1280 B.C."

A shot grazed the rope before the Doctor could explain further, and they all yelped as they were jerked downward. Unable to support their combined weight, the fraying rope snapped in the next second. They plummeted down, landing in a heap at the edge of the ground where the sensors were deactivated.

"Geronimo," the Doctor yelled, and jumped.

"I'm going to be very cross if we fall into the sewers," Rey called down before following.

Rory leapt in behind her.

"After them," one of the Monaxians ordered, but she was already closing the floor with a few swift keystrokes.

* * *

"Hello, stranger."

The Doctor paused and looked around the park. He brightened when he saw her standing beside a nearby bench. "Rey! When did you get here? What happened?" The half formed smile quickly became a dark frown when he saw the purple bruise at her temple.

One of the guards had gotten too close and clipped her with her blaster while they were headed back to the TARDIS. It wasn't as bad at it looked. Rey hadn't even been knocked out all the way, and the headache had faded. Everyone was alive, no one fell into the sewers—it was a decent rescue all in all.

"I'm fine," she deflected, letting her hair down so it would help cover the injury. "I jumped about two minutes ago and heard the TARDIS land. Where's Rose?"

Still frowning, the Doctor gave her a thorough once-over. Rey's own lips twitched down. She knew that frown. "It doesn't hurt," she told him before he could do something foolish like offer her some regeneration energy. "It's just a bruise."

He made a choked of noise, then deflated all at once.

"Rose?"

"Off visiting her mum. Should be short, she's only been gone twelve hours' time here. And look, I know you said to give her a chance and all, and I did. I'll even admit to not minding her, but do we have to take her with us?"

She studied him for a moment. She had seen him a while ago for her and not too long ago for him. His reaction to her face aside, there was already a big difference. The Doctor was lighter, looser. "She's good for you. Give her a chance."

Something over his shoulder caught her eye. "Are you sure it's only been twelve hours?"

"Positive. Why?"

She pointed. Behind him was an ordinary lamppost with a poster stuck to it. Rose's photograph smiled back at them with "Can You Help?" printed above. It was old, wrinkled from air drying and ripped at the corners. Rose had definitely been gone longer than twelve hours.

"We should probably warn her," Rey suggested.

The Doctor nodded numbly. "Right. Right," he repeated more strongly, snapping out of his daze. "Oh, Rey, what would I do without you?"

"Actually, I have a feeling you'd be just fine," she said honestly, then took off towards the Powell Estate. The Doctor was right on her heels, taking the lead as they raced up the stairs to Rose's flat. The door was open, and she was in the doorway being almost smothered at by Jackie who looked as if she'd seen a ghost. Or that her only child had finally returned home after having gone missing for a year.

"It's not twelve hours, the Doctor huffed out. "It's er… twelve months. You've been gone a whole year." He laughed nervously as both Tylers looked at him and Rey, stunned. "Sorry."

Jackie turned back to her daughter, petting her hair. The Doctor edged around them, leading Rey further into the flat without actually having been invited in. The living room was just as she remembered, if not slightly more cluttered with all the "missing" posters. Rose eventually was released by Jackie and joined them, confusion and outrage warring over her face.

Now that the relief had passed, Jackie was furious. She called the police when none of them could give her a satisfactory explanation. "The hours I've sat here. Days and weeks and months all on my own. I thought you were dead. And where were you? Traveling. What the hell does that mean? Travelling? That's no sort of answer." Rose shifted uneasily in the armchair. Jackie threw her arms up and turned to the PC. "You ask her. She won't tell me! That's all she says. Travelling."

"That's what I was doing," she said in a small voice.

"When your passport's still in the drawer? It's just one lie after another!"

"I meant to phone, I really did, I just… I forgot."

"What, for a year? You forgot for a year? And I am left sitting here? I just don't believe you. Why won't you tell me where you've been?"

"Actually it's my fault," the Doctor cut in, not catching Rey's subtle attempts at keeping him quiet. This was not going to end well. What sort of person thought that having a strange man tell a mother that her missing daughter was with them for a year was a good idea? "I sort of er, employed Rose as my companion."

"When you say 'companion,' is this a sexual relationship," the policeman asked, speaking for the first time since he'd gotten here. His eyes shifted from the Doctor to Rose to Rey.

"No," they shouted in unison.

"Then what is it," Jackie demanded to know, rounding on the Doctor. "Because you, you waltz in here all charms and smiles, and the next thing I know, she vanishes off the face of the Earth! How old are you then? 40? 45? What, you find her on the internet? Did you go online and pretend you're a doctor? Is that how you got this one?" She pointed at Rey.

The Doctor sputtered. "What? No— no! Rey isn't— Don't say that about— You—"

"Not a doctor, the Doctor," Rey corrected.

"Prove it! Stitch this, mate." And then Jackie slapped him.

Things quickly went downhill from there. There was more shouting and crying and accusations, and all of it, quite frankly, made Rey's head hurt. The policeman left after some time, saying he would cancel the missing person's alert on Rose now that she was back. As soon as she was able to, Rey escaped to the roof where she knew it would be quiet. The Doctor came with her, a little annoyed at the mess downstairs. Yes it had been partly his fault, but it was still irritating.

They sat in peace together for a time. Her eyes were on the sky—the weather was lovely for London. There was actual blue above them, and the clouds were like white puffs. The sun was even out, bright and warm enough that all she needed was a light coat.

Their hands lay side by side on the ledge where she sat and he leaned against, fingers brushing. The material of her gloves were thin enough that she could feel the heat of him through it. Now that she thought about it, Rey realized that they held hands a lot. Usually when one or both was in mortal peril, or when one or both needed reassuring.

Somewhere along the line, she had come to associate the Doctor with steadiness. It really wasn't doing anything for her attempts to ignore her stubborn feelings. Worse, she had come to hope he got some kind of comfort from her in return.

The door clanged open noisily. Rose, looking exhausted and conflicted, sighed in relief when she found the Doctor. She took a seat on the wall next to him and groaned dramatically. "I can't tell her. I can't even begin… She's never gonna forgive me. And I missed a year? Was it good?"

"Middling," he said noncommittally.

"You're so useless."

"Well, if it's this much trouble, are you gonna stay here now?"

Rose shrugged. "I dunno. I can't do that to her again, though."

"Well, she's not coming with us," he said firmly.

She burst out laughing. The Doctor joined in after a beat. "No chance."

"I don't do families."

"What about…" Rose shot Rey a look. She didn't have to check to make sure, feeling the force of Rose's gaze and curiosity.

The Doctor's hand twitched minutely, betraying his stony exterior. She wondered what he knew about her. Sometimes, especially with the older Doctors, it felt like he knew more about her than she did herself. "I don't have one," she said lightly without taking her eyes off the sky.

"Right." Rose stretched out the word a little. She didn't believe her, not fully at least. "My mum slapped you," she said suddenly to the Doctor.

"900 years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother."

"Now that's a surprise," Rey teased.

"Your face," Rose added comically.

"It hurt!"

"When you say 900 years…"

"That's my age," he explained.

"You're 900 years old."

"Yeah, give or take."

"My mum was right—that is one hell of an age gap." There was a soft _thud_ as she jumped off the wall. "Every conversation with you just goes mental. There's no one else I can talk to. I've seen all that stuff up there, the size of it, and I can't say a word. Aliens and spaceships and things, and I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."

"Not for long," Rey said. The clouds were going weird—not normal weather behavior at all.

A round spacecraft zoomed at them, narrowly missing their heads. Smog trailed out of the engines, which let out loud, aborted roars like a car engine failing to start. It was on a crash course for Central London, actually hitting Big Bang before it landed with a huge splash in the Thames.

"Oh, that's just not fair," Rose complained.

The Doctor laughed gleefully. He pulled Rey away from the edge and back towards the stairs. They had an adventure to start!

The streets were chaos. Stalled cars and a number of accidents blocked the roads. People poured out of every building to see what had happened. If they weren't careful, a riot of unimaginable proportions might actually break out.

"It's blocked off," he complained.

"We're still a few miles from the actual crash site," Rey noted. "They're probably treating it like a bombing. Proper procedure is that the scene is grid locked and the city will soon be closed to all ingress and egress."

"I can't _believe_ we're here to see this," he gushed. "This is fantastic!"

"Did you know this was going to happen," Rose asked him when she caught up, panting to regain her breath.

"Nope!"

"Do you recognize the ship?"

"Nope!"

"Do you know why it crashed?"

"Nope!"

"Oh, I'm so glad I've got you," she said sarcastically.

"I bet you are," the Doctor said seriously, still excited. "This is what I travel for, Rose! To see history happening right in front of us."

Rey resisted the urge to laugh. He was mostly silly when he was so excited, but his genuine eagerness was a little adorable. It was also infectious. She felt bubbly at the thought of what was going on.

Rose seemed to think so too since she brightened, suddenly full of energy. "Well, let's go and see it! Never mind the traffic, we've got the TARDIS!"

"Better not," he decided, putting a damper on her mood. "They've already got one spaceship in the middle of London, don't want to shove another one on top."

"Yeah, but yours looks like a big blue box," she pointed out. "No one's going to notice."

"Normally yes," Rey partially agreed, "but in an emergency like this with all sorts of people on edge and watching, even the TARDIS's perception filter wouldn't make much of a difference." She was worried about that time machine. She loved that time machine.

Rose looked very disgruntled and put out. "So, history's happening and we're stuck here."

"Yes, we are," the Doctor told her.

"We could always do what everybody else does."

And suddenly, Rey was feeling nervous, like a surprise exam had been sprung on her. Her mind went blank. What did normal people do in situations like this? Her books weren't any help—those characters were always in the middle of the action. Nothing ever happened in the hospital other than the earthquake, and in that case, she had been too busy trying not to die.

"We could watch it on TV," Rose finished.

At least it looked like this was a new concept to the Doctor too. But then again, he was like the antithesis to normal, so she should've figured the answer would've never occurred to him either.

Even just getting back to the Powell Estate was a challenge with how crowded it had gotten. As the smallest, Rey got the brunt of it. She was at the perfect height for stray elbows and shoulders to hit her, as if the sheer number of bodies being pressed in around them wasn't enough. By the time they made it back, she was feeling a touch overstimulated, and Jackie's grating voice as she complained didn't help.

Still, she tried to concentrate on the news and not her screaming nerves.

"_Big Ben destroyed as a UFO crash lands in Central London. Police reinforcements are drafted in from across the country to control widespread panic, looting, and civil disturbance. A state of national emergency has been declared. Tom Hitchinson is at the scene._"

The Doctor and Rose shared the long couch while Rey sat away from them in the armchair, curled up to minimize potential points of contact. She started a simple list of elements in her head, more for the familiarity than anything.

"_The police urge the public not to panic_," the reporter relayed. "_There's a help line number on screen right now if you're worried about friends or family._"

Rose flipped the channel to an American news station.

"_The military are on the lookout for more spaceships. Until then, all flights in North American air space have been grounded._"

Unsatisfied, she flipped it back to News 24.

"_The army are sending divers into the wreck of the spaceship. No one knows what they're going to find._"

And then back to the American channel. Rey wished she was just pick one already. Her bruised temple was pulsing, sending waves of aches that were more annoying than harmful.

"_The President will address the nation live from the White House. But the Secretary General has asked that people watch the skies._"

Jackie wandered in and handed Rose a cup of tea. "I've got no choice," she complained. "Either I make them welcome, or I run the risk of never seeing you again."

She went back to her friend Marianna, who had come over a little while ago. They babbled on angrily in the background. "Oi," the Doctor grumbled. "I'm trying to listen!" He glanced over at Rey, noticing how she was wincing. Well, wincing for her normally stoic face. Thankfully, he didn't ask.

"… _his current whereabouts. News is just coming in, we can go to Tom at the embankments._"

"_They've found a body. It's unconfirmed but I'm being told a body has been found in the wreckage. A body of non-terrestrial origins. It's being brought ashore._"

More people had found their way to the Tyler residence in the ensuing hours. They were all so noisy, and like buzzing bees you couldn't just ignore it. Not unless you wanted to get stung.

"Oh, guess who asked me out—Billy Crewe," Jackie gushed to someone.

"_Unconfirmed reports say that the body _is_ of extraterrestrial origin. An extraordinary event unfolding here live him in Central London. The body is being transferred to a secure UNIT mortuary. The whereabouts is yet unknown._"

Suddenly, the channel changed to a children's programme. The Doctor wrestled the remote out of the hands of the toddler on his lap, changing the channel back.

"… _in hospital._"

"_We still don't know whether it's alive or dead. Whitehall is denying everything. But the body has been brought here, Albian Hospital, the roads closed off—it's the closest to the river._"

The boy hopped off the sofa and stood directly in front of the telly, unsatisfied that no one was paying him any attention. Even more people arrived, and a full on party was going on in the background.

The Doctor ushered him to the side. "Go on!"

"_I'm being told that… General Asquith is now entering the hospital. The building's evacuated. The patients have been moved out onto the streets. The police still won't confirm the presence of an alien body. Contained inside those walls…_"

Rey made it through a report at 10 Downing Street, where they were still waiting for the Prime Minister, before it all became too much. The trigger wasn't anything big, just one of the guests sitting on the arm of her seat and jostling her slightly. But it was like a yellow alert had gone off in her head.

_Get out or you'll lose it. Again. _

She burst out of her seat and wove her way through the crowd towards the door without a word. If she tried to speak, to tell the Doctor where she was going, she wasn't sure what would've come out: a scream or nothing. Outside, the warmth of the perfect day had given way to the chill of night. The sconces and streetlights did a poor job illuminating the walkway.

As it turned out, the Tylers weren't the only ones having a party. It seemed like half the block was. She could hear incoherent babbling from behind other doors, and a lot of laughter. Another flat was playing music so loud, she could feel the bass from two floors up.

It was still worlds better than being trapped inside.

Her breath came out in white puffs, and she imagined being part of the sky, breathing out clouds and rain. She shivered in her thin jacket, wishing she had a thicker one on. Behind her closed eyes, her brain continued to keep time like a tap dancer's steps.

The Doctor didn't touch her when he joined her outside. He didn't even stand very close. He didn't speak, just made enough noise to let her know she wasn't alone. For all the times that man could be a jerk—and boy could he be rude—there were also times when he was the most considerate person Rey had ever known.

The silence didn't last very long. Rose had noticed the Doctor was gone and came to look for him. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Nowhere. It's just a bit human in there for me," he said casually, taking a few steps away from Rey in case the volume bothered her. "History just happened and they're talking about where you can buy dodgy top up cards for half price. I'm off on a wander, that's all."

"Right—there's a spaceship on the Thames and you're 'wandering,'" Rose agreed.

"Nothing to do with me," he insisted. "It's not an invasion! That was a genuine crash landing. Angle of descent, color of smoke, everything! It's perfect!"

"So…"

"So maybe this is it! First contact! The day mankind official comes into contact with an alien race. I'm not interfering because you've got to handle this on your own. That's when the human race finally grows up. Just this morning you were all tiny and small and made of clay! Now you can expand! You don't need me—go and celebrate history. Spend some time with your mum."

He walked back towards Rey, intending for them both to leave the building. "Promise you won't disappear," Rose called after him.

Rey gave him a look, reminding him of her request to keep an open mind when it came to Rose. He liked her; she could tell he liked her. He just wasn't at that place yet where he was sure he deserved good things.

He dug something out of his pocket. "Tell you what—TARDIS key. About time you had one. See you later!" Satisfied, Rose returned home, her hand closing into a fist around her new badge tightly.

They took their time walking back to the TARDIS. The air was cold, but it was cooling off her fried nerves. Besides, the Doctor had given her something to focus on.

"You know, you can always stay here if you're not feeling up to it," he began, pausing in his work to dematerialize them.

"Have you ever known me to take off halfway through an adventure of my own free will," she shot back, not missing a beat in completing the take off sequence. He smiled and gave her an expression that said _you got me_. "I guess you're stuck with me."

"I should be so lucky."

She rolled her eyes at his cheesiness. That was usually reserved for his older selves, and she was glad to see parts of his true personality, the parts not shackled by guilt and grief, peek through.

The console started to smoke. "You didn't release the gravity anchors, did you," she asked.

He whacked the controls a few times with a hammer in response. Amazingly, it actually helped the ride go smoother. He beamed at her like a proud child.

They landed in a small space, a storeroom that was barely bigger than the TARDIS herself. The Doctor pulled out the sonic, turning it on to run a scan before quickly turning it off when it made its signature noise. "Shh," he scolded it.

Rey rolled her eyes and got to picking the lock. Unfortunately, right outside the storeroom was an antechamber filled with soldiers taking a break. The chatter and laughing instantly stopped when they realized they weren't alone. A silent pause elapsed where no one really knew what to do. Then, each of the twenty men leapt to their feet and aimed their guns at the intruders.

A woman screamed from somewhere nearby.

"Defense part delta," the Doctor shouted. "Come on, move, move!" The soldiers, acting on reflex to authority and distress, followed him and Rey into through the other set of doors and down the hall. Dr. Sato was crouched on the floor outside the mortuary, so frightened she was shaking. "It's alive," she exclaimed.

"Spread out," the Doctor ordered the soldiers behind them. "Tell the perimeter it's a lockdown."

"My God—it's still alive," Dr. Sato gasped out. Blood dripped from her hairline. "I swear it was dead."

"Are you going to stand there all night," Rey asked the men who had yet to move. Prompted by her words, they split up to begin searching the building.

"Coma—shock—hibernation—anything," the Doctor dismissed. "What does it look like?" A muffled noise came from behind them. "It's still here."

He beckoned one of the soldiers into the room and walked quietly towards the source of the sound. Rey crept behind him, too curious to help herself. The sound repeated, and now that they were closer she could make out that it was a rattle. Dropping to his knees, the Doctor peeked behind the desk it had come from. "Hello!"

A pig, standing upright on two legs like something from an Orwellian story and dressed in a spacesuit, squealed loudly in terror. It scrambled out from beneath the desk and made a dash for it, running across the room and along the corridor. Before they could stop him, one of the soldiers shot it.

"Why did you do that," Rey asked loudly. She rushed over, but it was too late. "It was just scared."

The Doctor crouched beside her, stroking the pig's leg gently as it died.

Grimly, they moved the body back to the morgue and onto one of the examination slabs. Dr. Sato collected herself admirably, quickly treated her own injury, and was back in work mode. "I just assumed that's what aliens look like. But you two are saying it's an ordinary pig? From Earth?"

"More like a mermaid," the Doctor said.

"Victorian showmen used to glue a cat's skull to a fish and call it a mermaid," Rey explained. "That's how they drew in crowds and made money."

"Now someone's taken a pig, opened its brain, stuck bits on… then they strapped it in that ship and made it dive bomb," he finished angrily. "It must've been terrified. They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke."

He took Rey's hand—a clutch for balance to reign in his outrage. Dr. Sato was still talking, but he led her out back to the TARDIS, intent on finding out just who was behind it all. At her insistence, they returned to the Powell Estate to pick up Rose. Still caught in the mood of what they'd just left behind, neither bothered to check the sensors for any other life readings before they landed.

Rose entered warily, hovering in the doorway. "Alright, so I lied," the Doctor admitted without turning around. "I went and had a look, but the whole crash landing's a fake—I thought so, it's just too perfect. I mean, 'hitting Big Ben' come on, so thought 'let's go have a look—'"

"My mum's here," Rose interrupted. The TARDIS doors creaked open and Jackie and Mickey stepped inside, both looking shell-shocked.

"Oh, that's _just_ what I need. Don't you dare make this place domestic!"

"You ruined my life, Doctor," Mickey accused him, full of resentment. "You and Rey. They thought she was dead. I was a murder suspect because of you."

Ah, so that was why he was so tense around the Doctor. And, Rey supposed, he's never apologized for that either. Typical.

"Sorry," she more asked than said.

"See what I mean," the Doctor asked Rose, ignoring Mickey completely. "Domestic."

"I bet you don't even remember my name!"

"Ricky."

"Mickey," Rey corrected, then turned her attention back to the monitor. There was a program they could use to determine for sure if the crash landing really was faked or not.

"Are you sure," he asked her.

She gave him a look.

"Mum, don't," Rose shouted.

They turned their attention to Jackie just in time to watch her run out of the doors. For a moment, Rey was confused. Then she remembered—this was Jackie's first time in the TARDIS, and normal boxes weren't bigger on the inside.

"Don't go anywhere," Rose ordered the Doctor. "Don't start a fight," she added to Mickey. And then she ran after her mother.

"We don't have time for this," the Doctor whined impatiently.

Rose froze in the doorway. "I'll be up in a minute, hold on," she hollered at Jackie, before turning and running back to the Doctor's side. "That was a _real_ spaceship?"

"Yep!"

"So, it's all a pack of lies? What is it then, are they invading?"

"Funny way to invade, putting the world on red alert." Mickey, on his tiptoes behind them, was trying to see the screen. Rey shifted sideways a bit to give him a better vantage, but her space was quickly filled by Rose, who now stood between her and the Doctor.

"Good point," the Doctor noted, reluctantly impressed. "So, what'er they up to?" He slid underneath the console to reroute some of the wires.

"So, what'er you doing down there," Mickey asked.

"Ricky," the Doctor began, the name coming out a bit mangled due to the sonic he had between his teeth.

"Mickey," he corrected.

"Ricky. If I was to tell you what I was doing to the controls of my frankly magnificent time ship, would you even begin to understand?"

"I suppose not…"

"Shut it, then," he said rudely, and went back to work.

Mickey glared at him before going around the console to where Rose was. Rey kneeled by the Doctor's feet with a torch in hand, shining the light so he could actually see what he was doing. "I know you're angry, but you don't get to take it out on other people." She and Rose were his friends, he wouldn't lash out at them unless it truly was serious, but Mickey was a stranger, one he was already on bad terms it.

"Oh, sure, take his side."

"I'm always on your side," she said truthfully. "Until you start doing dumb things like pushing people away for no reason. Or do you think that I don't know part of the reason you're so rude to Mickey is because you hope Rose will take offense and choose not to travel with you anymore?" She glanced over at the two of them, still lingering by the monitor. They were having their own conversation, completely deaf to her and the Doctor.

He was silent for a moment. "I don't push you away," he eventually said defensively.

"It wouldn't work with me. And I think you know that." Rey was like the pebble in his shoe that he couldn't get rid of. She didn't know what it would take to get her to stop jumping around his timeline. Maybe death. Or a coma. She definitely knew that she didn't want to find out.

Again, the Doctor was silent. She wondered if she'd hurt him—it was hard to tell with only his legs to judge by. When he exclaimed "Got it! Haha!" after a small shower of sparks, his voice sounded like it normally did.

Rose abandoned her spot next to Mickey and rushed over to join him. "Patched in the radar, looped it back 12 hours so we can follow the flight of the spaceship, here we go… hold on…" He dragged the monitor over to them, whacking it a few times when it continued to display a straight white line against a black backdrop. The image cleared up to show the dot that was supposed to represent the ship. It flew away from a large sphere, then back towards it at a different spot. "That's the spaceship on its way to Earth… see? Except… hold on… see, the spaceship did a sling shot 'round the Earth before it landed."

"What does that mean," Rose asked.

"It means that the ship originated from here in the first place," Rey explained. "And that means that whoever those aliens are, they've been here a while."

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "The question is, what have they been doing?" He fiddled with the monitor again, this time to get the news on.

"How many channels do you get," Mickey asked curiously.

"All the basic packages."

"You get sports channels?"

"Yes, I get the football," he said knowingly. "Hold on, I know that bloke."

On the screen, the reporter from the afternoon broadcast was still standing before 10 Downing Street. This time, a group of serious looking officers were entering behind him. The uniform had changed somewhat, but Rey could still recognize UNIT when she saw them.

"_It is looking likely that the government is bringing in alien specialists—those people who have devoted their lives to studying outer space._"

The Doctor looked pleasantly surprised. "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," he explained to Rose and Mickey. "Good people. Ah, have you met them yet Rey?"

"Briefly." She had jumped to the Doctor outside one of their facilities, and he had promptly whisked her away.

"How do you know them," Rose asked.

"'Cos he worked for them," Mickey answered before anyone else could. "Yeah, don't think I sat on my backside for twelve months, Doctor. I read up on you. You look deep enough on the internet… and in the history books, and there's his name. Followed by a list of the dead."

"That's nice," the Doctor said dismissively. "Good boy, Ricky."

"If you know them, why don't you go and help?"

"They wouldn't recognize me. I've changed a lot since the old days. Besides, the world's on a knife-edge. There's aliens out there and fake aliens. We want to keep this alien out of the mix. I'm going undercover… and, eh, better keep the TARDIS out of sight. Ricky! You've got a car—you can do some driving."

He strolled to the exit without bothering to check if they were following.

"Where to," Mickey asked, sounding like he was close to the end of his rope.

"The roads should be clearing by now," Rey noted. "Shall we take a look at the spaceship?"

They stepped outside to be greeted by the sound of helicopters. A bright searchlight instantly caught them in its field, nearly blinding in its intensity. "Do not move," someone ordered through a loudspeaker. Police cars with their blinking lights and soldiers armed to the teeth surrounded them, blocking their escape. Only Mickey managed to make it out, sneaking behind some dustbins while the others kept their attention on the Doctor.

Jackie ran from the flats, trying to reach Rose. Regret was visible on her face—she was the one who called it in. Two soldiers restrained her before she could get close.

"Raise your hands above your head! You are under arrest!"

They did so without arguing. "Take me to your leader," the Doctor yelled, a large grin on his face.

Rey tensed at the feel of a soldier's hands on her arms, pulling them behind her back to contain her. She willed herself not to lash out and make things worse. At least she wasn't being drugged, she reasoned. At least there was no straightjacket. They weren't even cuffing her for whatever reason.

_Phosphorus, cobalt, platinum, nickel, magnesium…_

She, the Doctor, and Rose were all but dragged and shoved into the back of a police car. The door slammed shut behind her and the car started to move. "This is a bit posh," Rose said. "If I knew it was gonna be like this—being arrested—I'd have done it years ago."

"We're not being arrested, we're being escorted," the Doctor corrected. He shot Rey a worried look, noting the way she kept rubbing her arms. She shook her head—she was fine.

"Where to?"

"Downing Street," she answered.

The Doctor laughed. Incredulously, Rose joined in. "You're kidding."

"We're not!"

"10 Downing Street?"

"That's the one!"

"Oh my God! I'm going to 10 Downing Street? How come?"

The Doctor winced. "I hate to say it, but Mickey was right. Over the years I've visited this planet a lot of times, and I've been, uh—noticed."

"Now they need you," Rose guessed.

"Like it said on the news—they're gathering experts in alien knowledge. And who's the biggest expert of the lot?" He grinned expectantly.

"Patrick Moore?"

"Apart from him! Rey knows more than he does! I'm telling you, Lloyd George—he used to drink me under the table."

"Who's the current Prime Minister," Rey asked.

Rose shrugged. "How should I know? I missed a year."

In no time at all, the car pulled up. If she thought the searchlight was bad, it had nothing on the camera flashes. Reporters and the paparazzi alike were gathered along the road, held back by what must have been a hundred—104, Rey quickly counted—police men. The Doctor waved at everyone like a movie star while Rose smiled nervously. Rey kept her face straight, trying not to freak out over all the attention. She followed the Doctor inside as quickly as she could.

A man of Indian descent, Indra, was addressing the room. "Ladies and Gentlemen, could we convene? Quick as we can, please. It's this way on the right and can I remind you, ID cards are to be worn at all times." He approached the Doctor and handed him a laminated card to be worn around the neck. "Here's your ID card. I'm sorry, your companions don't have clearance."

"I don't go anywhere without them," the Doctor said plainly.

"You're the code nine, not them. I'm sorry, Doctor… it is the Doctor, isn't it? They'll have to stay outside."

"Rey is staying with me." He stared Indra down, not looking upset, but very firm.

"Look, even I don't have clearance to go in there. I can't let her in and that's a fact."

"Excuse me? Are you the Doctor?" A woman—Harriet, younger and less certain—appeared at Indra's shoulder.

"Not now, we're busy—can't you go home?" While he was preoccupied with her, the Doctor bade Rose a quick goodbye and pulled Rey with him into the room set aside for the experts.

If anyone noticed she wasn't supposed to be there, no one said anything. They took a seat at the back of the room. She quickly scanned through the booklet left on the chair. It was fluff stuff—a briefing that basically said they knew nothing but made to look longer by using a lot of big words and empty adjectives. There was one report, however, that caught her eye. She showed it to the Doctor.

At the front, two hefty politicians made their way to a desk. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to have your attention please," Asquith began. "As you can see from the summaries in front of you, the ship had one porcine occupant—"

The Doctor quickly interrupted him. "Now, the _really_ interesting bit happened three days ago, see, filed away under every other business. The North Sea—the satellite detected a signal, a little blip of radiation at one hundred fathoms like there was something down there… you were just about to investigate and the next thing you know, this happens—spaceships, pigs—massive diversion—from what? If aliens fake an alien crash and an alien pilot, what do they get?"

It reminded Rey of an article she'd read once, about the September 11th bombing in America. The piece had been about the response efforts and tactics—strengths and weaknesses. There was a reason why there had been two strikes. The first was to cause damage, the second was to attack first responders who had gathered at the scene to help.

Sort of like how the British government had gathered all the alien experts in the world into one room.

"It's not a diversion," she realized. "This is a trap."

"Rey?"

"If you've got a maniacal plan, the first step it to remove all the obstacles that could get in your way."

He nodded, understanding where she was coming from. "So if you're an alien, you'd make getting rid of all the people that could possibly stop you your number one priority. People who would otherwise be scattered across the world or in locations unknown…" At the front of the room, Joseph farted loudly. The Doctor raised his eyebrows and gave him a pointed look. "Excuse me, do you mind not farting while we're saving the world?"

"Would you rather silent, but deadly?" He and Asquith sniggered. Asquith took off his hat, revealing a zipper on his forehead. He pulled the skin suit off to show the alien he really was underneath it. Next to him Joseph was still hollering wildly like this was the funniest moment of his life.

Rey felt like hitting herself. Well, now their time in Wales suddenly made a lot more sense. How had she missed it?

"We are the Slitheen," Asquith announced.

"Thank you all for wearing your ID cards," Joseph said, taking out a clicker from his pocket. "They'll help to identify the bodies." His fat thumb pressed down on the button and suddenly, everyone in the room was being electrocuted.

Everyone except Rey.

She crouched by the Doctor as he fell to his knees in pain. His body convulsed, but he was still faring better than the others. Metal chairs and electricity—the smell of burning flesh lingered heavy in the air.

At the front of the room, Asquith laughed.

* * *

**Stay safe, folks.**


	5. World War Three

Electricity.

Why did it have to be electricity? They could've flooded the room with poison gas. They could've brought in a firing squad. They could've blown the building up. Out of all the possible ways to kill them, why did they have to choose electrocution?

With a wince, Rey reached out to pull the ID off of the Doctor. It hurt. It burned. For a moment, she was back on Satellite Five in front of the Editor, and she was outside the Calvierri School after losing Isabella, and she was here in a room full of the dead and dying. Forcing her hands to move, she dropped the still sparking tag on the ground.

Oh god, her hands. The fabric of her gloves covering her palms had ripped and started to melt. The patches of skin that she could see were right red with blistering splotches. It felt like her hands were on fire.

The Doctor staggered to his feet. He held the ID by the lanyard and struggled to get to the front of the room. "Deadly to humans, maybe," he said, then shoved it into Asquith's chest. There must've been something connecting the Slitheen, because both he and Joseph felt the pain.

Running back to help Rey up, the Doctor ushered her out the door. Security had gathered in the reception room, all looking fairly confused. "Oi! You want aliens—you got them. They're inside Downing Street. Come on!" He led them back into the conference room, but by the time they returned, Asquith was back in his person-suit.

"Where've you been," Joseph demanded to know as the guards began to check the bodies. "I called for help, I sounded the alarm. There was this… lightning! This kind of er… um… electricity, and they all collapsed."

"I think they're all dead," one of the guards said fearfully.

"That's what I'm saying. They did it!" he pointed to the Doctor and Rey. "That man and girl there!"

"I think you will find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise," the Doctor said pointedly. Then, after a beat, he realized "That's never going to work, is it?"

"Nope," the policeman next to them said.

"Fair enough."

They ran for it, security at their heels and more pouring in from all sides. Soon, they were surrounded. There were more guns than Rey could count through the pain, and her hands—how was she supposed to defend herself with her hands in their current state?

"Under the jurisdiction of the Emergency Protocols, I authorize you to execute them," Asquith proclaimed.

One of the guards at the front hesitated. "Even the kid," he asked uncertainly.

"Yes, the girl also," Asquith said, exasperated.

They readied their guns. "Uh, well, now, yes." The Doctor distracted them while Rey used her elbow to call for the lift. "You see, eh… the thing is… If I was you, if I was going to execute someone by backing them against the wall, between you and me, little word of advice…" The lift alighted with a light _ping_. "Don't stand them against the lift!"

They backed inside, the Doctor speeding the process of closing the doors with the sonic.

"Let me see," he asked softly, turning to Rey. She held her hands up, wincing. It felt less like they were on fire now, but the pain ebbed and flowed in time with the beat of her elevated heart rate. "We have to take these off."

She sucked in a steadying breath and nodded. "Do it fast."

Without warning, without giving her time to tense, he ripped off the gloves, one after the other in quick succession. Rey bit down on her lip until it bled, and that still wasn't enough to hold back her whimper. Bits of fabric remained on her palms, and other areas were bleeding freshly as the skin was torn off.

"We need to get this treated."

"We have more important matters to deal with right now," she said through gasps, nodding at the now open doors. Margaret the Slitheen—now there was a familiar name—was paused in front of them, one claw raised in an aborted attack. Rose and Harriet, her intended targets, made use of the distraction to slip away. They scurried down the corridor and out of sight.

"Bye," the Doctor said rudely before shutting the lift doors again. They traveled down this time, getting off on the third level, and then quickly taking a flight of stairs down one more floor as they heard the telltale sound of the lift being called. The sergeant in charge was giving orders loudly down the corridor. As heavy footsteps walked towards them, they ducked into an alcove just barely big enough to hide them both.

"We'll keep this floor quarantined as our last hunting ground before the final phase," Joseph said as he walked past, out of his skin suit. He went upstairs, most likely to reunite with Margaret and any others if there were.

The Doctor's hand lit up golden. The shadows danced across his face, hiding his true expression. All Rey could make out were hard eyes. She made to protest, but he was already taking her hands.

Warmth spread through her palms, up her arms, and settled in her chest.

The light died down, but the warmth remained. The newly healed skin felt tingly, but not tight. She was sure if she looked, her palms would seem as if they had never been injured to begin with.

"You shouldn't have done that."

The Doctor stayed quiet, and Rey felt a little sick.

Her mind spun. She remembered the Doctor's regeneration and how rough it had been. Was this partly to blame for that? There were all sorts of dangers of regenerations gone wrong. The neural implosion—that had been because there wasn't enough energy to fix him up all the way. And that had been _her_ fault.

There was a reason why Time Lords didn't use their regeneration energy willy-nilly to heal any old wound. If they didn't have enough stored up when the time came, then that was really it.

"You shouldn't just _give_ away parts of yourself for me like that. Not so easily."

"'Easily,'" he repeated, tone undecipherable.

His hand came up and she almost flinched. He froze like she had, then let it drop. She was still holding his other hand. One of them—she honestly couldn't tell if it was him or her—was shaking.

After a beat, they both silently agreed to move on. The Slitheen were upstairs, and Harriet and Rose were still up there too. Taking a different route, they tracked Rose using the sonic to scan for her signature. Margaret, Joseph, and Asquith were all gathered together to hunt, trapping them in the state room. Just when Margaret was about to discover Rose's hiding spot, Harriet leapt out of hers, arms wide and shouting "No! Take me first! Take me!"

The Doctor took his chance and crashed in. Using a fire extinguisher he'd grabbed from one of the corridors, he sprayed the Slitheens in their faces. "Out! With us!" Rose pulled the curtains down over Margaret's head before she and Harriet ran over to joint Rey behind the Doctor. "Who the hell are you?"

"Harriet Jones—MP for Flydale North."

"Nice to meet you," he said pleasantly.

"Likewise."

The Doctor blasted the extinguisher one more time before leaving it behind as they ran for it. "We need to get to the cabinet room," Rey huffed out, rerouting them.

"The Emergency Protocols are in there," Harriet told them frantically. "They give instructions on aliens!"

"Harriet Jones—I like you," the Doctor decided.

"And I like you too," she echoed, confused but pleased.

The cabinet room wasn't far, just down the corridor, through two locked rooms that were easily opened with the sonic. Unfortunately, the Slitheen had recovered and were right on their heels. With the final door still open, the Doctor nicked a bottle of brandy sitting at the miniature bar and held the sonic to it threateningly. "One more move and my sonic device will triplicate the flammability of this alcohol. Whoof! We all go up. So back off."

They hesitated and collectively took a small step back.

"Right then. Question time. Who exactly are the Slitheen?"

"They're aliens," Harriet unhelpfully said from behind his shoulder.

"Yes. I got that, thanks."

"Who are you, if not human," Joseph asked.

"Who's not human?"

"He's not human," Rose said.

"He's not human?"

"Now isn't the best time for this," Rey said.

Harriet apologized.

"So—what's the plan?"

"But he's got a Northern accent," Harriet pointed out, unable to let the topic go.

"Lots of planets have a North," Rose explained.

"I said hush. Come on!" He held the brandy a little further out. "You've got a spaceship hidden in the North Sea. It's transmitting a signal. You've murdered your way to the top of the government—what for? Invasion?"

"Why would we invade this God forsaken rock," Asquith asked, giving the impression he would be crinkling his nose if he were in his human suit.

"Then something's brought the Slitheen race here—what is it?"

"'The Slitheen race,'" Asquith quoted.

"Slitheen is not our species," Joseph corrected, drawing to full height. "Slitheen is our surname. Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasameer Day Slitheen, at your service."

"So, you're family," he concluded.

"It's a family business."

"Then you're out to make a profit. How can you do that on a 'God forsaken rock?'"

Asquith paused. "Ahhh… excuse me? Your device will do what? Triplicate the flammability…"

"Is that what I said," the Doctor asked.

"You're making it up!"

"Ah, well! Nice try. Harriet, have a drink. I think you're gonna need it." He handed her the bottle without looking.

"Pass it to the left," she said, not wanting it.

"Sorry." He gave it to Rose.

"Now we can end this hunt… with a slaughter."

"Don't you think we should run," Rose asked hesitantly, backing up as the Slitheen advanced.

"There's a reason we came here," Rey told her.

"Fascinating history, Downing Street," the Doctor said. "Two thousand years ago, this was marsh land. 1730, it was occupied by a Mr. Chicken. He was a nice man, wasn't he Rey? 1796, this was the cabinet room—if the cabinet's in session and in danger, these are about the four most safest walls in the whole of Great Britain." He pressed a switch near the door. "End of lesion."

All at once, metal shutters covered the doors and windows. Asquith pulled his arm back just in time to avoid having it amputated. "Installed in 1991," the Doctor told Rose and Harriet. "Three inches of steel lining every single wall. They'll never get in."

"And how do we get out," Rose asked.

"Ah… Never mind that for now."

The former Prime Minister's body was still in the room with them. As was the young man who had handed the Doctor his ID card. They dragged both into a small adjoining storeroom.

"What was his name," the Doctor asked.

Harriet looked over. "Who?"

"This one. The secretary or whatever he was called."

"I don't know," she realized with solemn shame. "I talked to him. I brought him a cup of coffee. I never asked his name."

"Sorry." Closing the door, the Doctor refocused. "Right, what have we got? Any terminals? Anything?"

Rose shook her head. "No. The place is antique. What I don't get, is when they killed the Prime Minister, why didn't they use him as a disguise?"

"He's too slim—they're big old beasts, they need to fit inside big humans."

"But the Slitheen are about 8 feet, how do they squeeze inside," Rose asked.

"The device around their necks is a compression field. It shrinks them down a bit so they can fit. The smell is a gas exchange," Rey exchanged. She was trying not to make it obvious that she was looking at her hands. Like she had suspected, there wasn't a trace of damage left. No lingering scars. The skin wasn't even red.

"Wish I had a compression field, I could fit a size smaller."

"Excuse me, people are dead," Harriet scolded Rose. "This is not the time for making jokes."

"Sorry… you get used to this stuff when you're friends with him." She gestured to the Doctor, who was scanning the walls with the sonic.

Harriet considered him carefully. "Well, that's a strange friendship."

"Harriet Jones—I've heart that name before—Harriet Jones. Rey, where have I heard that before?"

"Spoilers," she said, testing her fingers. The flexibility was still there. Then, she tucked her hands into her pockets so she'd stop studying them. "It'll come to you eventually."

"Rings a bell, Harriet Jones… You're not famous for anything, are you?"

"Lifelong back bencher I'm afraid, and a fat lot of use I'm being now."

"You survived," Rey told her. "That's more than enough."

Harriet offered her a shy smile, then quickly refocused on the papers before her. "The protocols are redundant, they list the people who can help and they're all dead downstairs."

"Hasn't it got like, defense codes and things," Rose asked. "Can we just launch a nuclear bomb at 'em?"

"You're a very violent young woman…"

"I'm serious! We could!"

"A nuclear strike in the heart of London would be devastating. Millions dead, more injured, and that's not even considering the long term effects like radiation poisoning and cancer. So unless you want the UK to crumble, we should consider other options," Rey said hotly. She was never a fan of nuclear armament. Too many innocent people had to pay the price for the actions of the few.

"Well, in any case, there's nothing like that in here," Harriet said shakily, taken aback by the horrific quality of Rey's blunt words. "Nuclear strikes do need a release code, yes, but it's kept secret by the United Nations."

The Doctor paused in scanning the mantelpiece. "Say that again," he asked.

"What, about the codes?"

"Anything. All of it."

"Um, well… the British Isles can't gain access to atomic weapons without a special resolution from the UN."

"Like that's ever stopped them," Rose said snidely.

"Exactly, given our past record—and I voted against that, thank you very much," Harriet added. "The codes have been taken out of the government's hands and given to the UN. Is it important?"

"Everything is important," Rey said.

"If we only knew what the Slitheen wanted. Listen to me, I'm saying 'Slitheen' as if it's normal."

"What do they want, though," Rose asked.

"Well, it's just one family so it's not an invasion," the Doctor said, crossing that off his mental list. "They don't want Slitheen World… they're out to make money, which means they want to use something, something here on Earth… some kind of asset."

"Like what? Gold? Oil? Water," Harriet offered.

"You're very good at this," the Doctor noted.

"Isn't it obvious," Rey asked honestly. She would have thought he'd have figured it out by now.

Three pairs of eyes zeroed in on her. "Did you see something," the Doctor asked casually.

"More like heard, I think."

"'See,'" Harriet repeated, immediately zeroing in on the fact that the Doctor hadn't meant the word in its traditional meaning. "Are you an alien too?"

She shook her head and verbally confirmed. "Human."

"Rey just sees the world a little differently, that's all," the Doctor easily explained. His tone was deceptively light as he took a seat next to her. "She makes connections that take other people a little while longer. What did you hear?"

"A blatant disregard for the Earth. Also greed and fear," she added, waiting to see if that would trigger the realization in him. But the Doctor just looked like he wanted her to explain more. Before she could continue, Rose's phone went off.

"Oh! That's me."

"But we're sealed off," Harried protested. "How did you get a signal?"

"He zapped it! Super-phone."

"Then we can phone for help! You must have contacts," she asked the Doctor.

"Dead downstairs, yeah."

"It's Mickey," Rose told them.

"Oh, tell your stupid boyfriend we're busy."

"Yeah, he's not stupid after all." Rose handed him her mobile.

Rey leaned over to see the message. Mickey had sent her a picture of a Slitheen in Jackie's kitchen. It was in the process of being electrocuted, from when the Doctor shoved his ID at Asquith, so at least they knew that the immediate danger had passed for now.

Rose quickly dialed him, worried about her mother. "Is she alright, though? Don't put her on, just tell me."

The Doctor snatched the mobile away before she could get a response. "Is that Ricky? Don't talk, just shut up and go to your computer." Rey gestured to the speaker system set up on the table for conference calls. He soniced it to connect the two devices.

"It's Mickey. And why should I?"

"Mickey the Idiot—I might just choke before I finish this sentence, but eh—I need you."

Across the table, Rose held back a snicker. Harriet looked confused and anxious. Rey wondered if this was how a schoolteacher with a misbehaving student finally beginning to make amends felt. She quickly decided that she didn't like the comparison, and that it was insulting to all parties involved.

Quickly, the Doctor instructed Mickey to get on the UNIT website.

"It says password."

"Try Buffalo with two Fs and one L," Rey suggested. She flashed the Doctor a look and ignored the glance Rose was giving her. "You need to update your passwords. Or, at least not use the same one every time."

"So what's that website," she heard Jackie's muffled voice ask in the background.

"All the secret information known to mankind," Mickey replied. "See, they've known about aliens for years, they just kept us in the dark."

"Mickey, you were born in the dark," the Doctor snarked.

"Oh, leave him alone," Rose said defensively.

"Thank you. Password again."

"Just repeat it, every time." He turned his attention away from the phone. "Big Ben—why did the Slitheen hit Big Ben?"

"You said to gather the experts," Harriet reminded him. "To kill them."

"That lot would've gathered for a weather balloon, you don't need to crash land in the middle of London."

"The Slitheen were hiding," Rose added. "And then they put the entire planet on red alert, why would they do that for?"

"Oh, listen to her," Jackie complained.

"At least I'm trying!"

"Well, I've got a question if you don't mind. Because since that man and girl walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets. I have had creatures from the pits of hell in my living room, and my daughter's disappeared off the face of the Earth."

"I told you what happened," Rose protested.

"I'm talking to him," Jackie snapped. "'Cause I've seen this life of yours, Doctor. And maybe you get off on it. And maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me. Just answer me this—is my daughter safe?"

He glanced at Rey's hands, still tucked away, then back to the phone. "I'm fine," Rose insisted.

"Is she safe," Jackie repeated. "Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that? Well, what's the answer?"

"We're in," Mickey announced, effectively changing the topic.

"Right then—on the left, there's a tab—an icon—little concentric circles—click on that," the Doctor instructed, rushing around the table to the other side.

"What is it?"

"The Slitheen have got a spaceship in the North Sea and it's transmitting that signal. Now hush, let me work out what it's saying."

"He'll have to answer me one day," Jackie said petulantly.

Mickey shushed her loudly.

"It's some sort of message."

"What's it say," Rose asked.

"Don't know—it's on a look, keeps repeating." Mickey's doorbell rang loudly in the background. "Hush! It's beaming out into space, who's it for?" He turned to face Rey. "You said you'd figured it out. What are they planning?"

"World War Three," she said plainly. "People lash out when they're cornered and afraid. The Slitheen created a state of panic and fear so they could ask for the nuclear codes, ostensibly to fight back. They're going to bomb as many other countries as they can and reduce the Earth to radioactive waste that they can sell. That signal is probably an advertisement. You can't make a profit if no one knows you're having a sale."

The Doctor's face grew grim. Harriet and Rose looked terrified. "How the hell did you figure all that out by yourself," Rose asked, voice shaking. Rey didn't take offense. Rose's hostility was because she didn't want to believe something so horrific could be true.

Before she could answer, Jackie screamed. "They've found us," Mickey told them frantically.

"Mickey, I need that signal," the Doctor insisted.

"Never mind the signal, mum just get out," Rose shouted. "Get out! Get out!"

"We can't, it's by the front door. Oh my God. It's unmasking. It's gonna kill us."

"There's got to be some way of stopping them," Harried cried. "You're supposed to be the expert, think of something!"

"I'm trying!"

The sound of cracking wood came from the speakers. "That's my mother," Rose pleaded.

"Right! If we're going to find their weakness, we need to find out where they're from—which planet. Rey, if you know, don't tell me."

She wanted to protest, but the Doctor was the one who better understood the consequences of paradoxes, not her. She could only guess what would happen, but he would know. Rose shot her an angry, hurt look. She looked away, biting down on her split lip to concentrate on the pain so she would shout the answer out.

"So, judging from their face and shape, that narrows it down to five thousand planets within traveling distance. What else do we know about them? Information!"

"They're green," Rose said, finally looking away from Rey.

"Yep, narrows it down."

"Uh, good sense of smell," she added.

"Narrows it down."

"They can smell adrenaline."

"Narrows it down."

"The compression technology," Harriet said.

"Narrows it down."

"The spaceship in the Thames—you said slipstream engine?"

"Narrows it down."

A loud crash blared through the speaker. "It's getting in," Mickey warned.

"Oh! They hunt like it's a ritual."

"Narrows it down."

"Wait a minute," Harriet suddenly gasped. "Did you notice, when they fart—if you'll pardon the word—it doesn't just smell like a fart—if you're pardon the word—it's something else, what is it, it's more like uh… um…"

"Bad breath," Rose shouted.

"That's it!"

"Calcium decay," the Doctor exclaimed. "Now that narrows it down!"

"We're getting there, mum!"

"Calcium phosphate, organic calcium, living calcium, creatures made out of living calcium, what else, what else—hyphenated sodium—yes! That narrows it down to one planet! Raxacoricofallapatorius!"

"Oh, yeah, great," Mickey said sarcastically. "We could write 'em a letter."

"Get into the kitchen," the Doctor ordered. "Calcium, recombined with compression field—acetic acid. Vinegar!"

"Just like Hannibal," Harriet realized.

"Just like Hannibal," the Doctor agreed. "Mickey, have you got any vinegar?"

"How should I know?"

"It's your kitchen."

"Cupboard by the sink, middle shelf," Rose instructed.

"Give it here, what do you need," Jackie asked, now sounding much clearer. She must've taken the phone from Mickey.

"Anything with vinegar," the Doctor told her.

They heard clanging and clamoring. "Gerkins," Jackie exclaimed victoriously. "Yeah! Pickled onions! Pickled eggs!"

"You kiss this man," the Doctor asked Rose aside.

There were more banging noises, silence, then a loud explosion and sounds of disgust as Jackie and Mickey were left with whatever happened to Slitheen when mixed with acetic acid. "Hannibal," Rose asked after a beat.

"Hannibal Barca crossed the Alps by dissolving boulders with vinegar," Rey explained. She'd braced herself for Rose's ire and wasn't disappointed by the fierce glare she received. At least now she knew part of why Rose disliked her so much. And it was justified—they were almost too late in helping Jackie and Mickey. If the Doctor had been a few seconds slower, her mother would be dead.

Collectively, they all drank from their glasses. The bourbon burned as it went down and Rey made a face—why did people drink in the first place if it tasted like this? The Doctor spit his drink back out, also disgusted. "Sorry, but should you be drinking," Harriet asked her.

"I'm 18."

She looked surprised but didn't say anything else.

A few minutes of silence elapsed as they all settled in their relief. "Listen to this," Mickey suddenly said over the phone before holding up the device to the newscast.

"Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction, capable of being deployed within 45 seconds," Joseph announced.

The Doctor sat up. "What?"

He looked to Rey. The Slitheen were starting the last stage of their plan.

"Our technicians can—baffle—the alien probes. But not for long. We are facing extinction. Unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mothership. I beg the United Nations—pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes! A nuclear strike at the heart of the ship is our only chance of survival. Because… from this moment on… it is my solemn duty to inform you… planet Earth is at war."

"They're craftier than they look," the Doctor said.

Harriet nodded in agreement. "They're trying to force the vote by publicly appealing. The UN can't sit still if the people's eyes are on them."

"Do you think they'll believe him," Rose asked.

"They did last time," the Doctor said. He made up his mind on something, getting up from his seat and marching over to the door. The steel plates slide open to reveal the rest of the Slitheen still outside. "We know your plan. You get the codes, release the missiles, but not into space because there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth, they retaliate, fight back. World War Three—whole planet gets nuked and you can sell it piece by piece as raw fuel. And you're planning on doing so at the cost of five billion lives."

"Bargain," Margaret, the only one in her person-suit, said.

"Then I give you the choice—leave this planet or I'll stop you."

They all burst out laughing. "What? You? Trapped in your box?"

"Yes. Me." He stared them down, fixing his gaze specifically on Margaret, then closed the shutters once more.

Over the phone, the news was still coming through. Reports of empty streets as the people waited for the UN to make a decision. The world was simultaneously on a tipping point and at a standstill. Neither would last long. Something would give, or start, or fall.

There was little doubt that the UN would agree. The Doctor had a back-up plan; Rey had seen the second it formed in his head when he realized what the Slitheen were up to and that they couldn't be reasoned. She could even guess what it was, and why he was so hesitant.

"Alright, Doctor," Jackie said, taking the phone again. "I'm not saying I trust you, but there must be something you can do."

"If we ferment the porch, we could make ascetic acid," Harriet suggested, grasping at straws.

"Mickey, any luck," Rose asked him. He was trying to get through to someone to explain that it was wall a trick.

"There's loads of emergency numbers—they're all on voicemail."

"Voicemail dooms us all," Harriet lamented.

Rey came up to the Doctor. He was standing apart from the others, arms crossed and doing his best to imitate a statue. "You have a plan," she said quietly to him.

"Not a good one."

"But one that will work. One that would save the Earth."

He turned to face her, probably expecting her to look away. Rey met his gaze, and he softened a little. She took his wrist, forcing his arms to unfurl. His eyes flicked down to her hands, the last of his stony exterior crumbling. "But it would put you in danger."

"Not much of a choice is it—me or the world?"

If anything, his eyes only grew sadder. "There's a way out," he called to the rest of the room, not breaking eye contact until the last second.

"What?"

"There's always been a way out."

"Then why don't we use it," Rose asked.

The Doctor led Rey back over to the phone so he could speak to Jackie. "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe."

"Don't you dare," Jackie ordered, afraid. "Whatever it is, don't you dare."

"That's the thing: if I don't dare, everyone dies."

"Do it," Rose urged.

"You don't even know what it is, you'd just let me," he asked her, surprised.

"Yeah," she said simply.

"Please, Doctor," Jackie begged. "Please! She's my daughter, she's just a kid!"

"Do you think I don't know that," he asked her, the unease clear in his voice. "Because this is my life, Jackie, it's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will."

"Then what're you waiting for," Rose asked softly. He held Rose's gaze, desperate for something.

"Except it's not your decision, Doctor," Harriet said, looking as scared and brave as ever. "It's mine."

"And who the hell are you," Jackie asked angrily.

"Harriet Jones—MP for Flydale North. The only elected representative in this room, chosen by the people, for the people, and on behalf of the people I command you. Do it."

The Doctor grinned at her courage.

Rose leaped to her feet. "How do we get out?"

"We don't. We stay here." He opened the briefcase that held the emergency protocols, flipping through for the information they needed. "Use the buffalo password," he told Mickey, "it overrides everything."

With the Doctor's clearance, Mickey easily hacked into the Royal Navy. "We're in. Here it is, uh… H.M.S. Taurean, Trafalgar class Submarine, 10 miles off the coast of Plymouth."

"Right, we need to select a missile."

"We can't go nuclear, we don't have the defense codes," Mickey said.

"Any missile, Mickey," Rey told him. "What's the first category?"

"Sub Haffoon, UGMA4A."

"That's the one. Select," the Doctor said. "Ready for this?"

There was a pause. "Yeah."

"Mickey the Idiot. The world is in your hands. Fire."

They all shared a glance. Harriet tapped one of the steel plates. "How solid are these?"

"Not solid enough, built for short range attack, nothing this big."

"Alright. Now I'm making the decision," Rose said, taking charge. "I'm not gonna die, we're gonna ride this one out." She opened the cupboard door and examined the inside. "It's like what they say about earthquakes, you can survive 'em by standing under a door frame. Now, this cupboard's small so it's strong. Come and help me! Come on!"

Together, she, Harriet, and Rey emptied the space out. It was mostly coats that hung inside, but there were also old brooms, broken vases, and what might've been a precursor to the radio.

"It's on radar," Mickey warned. "Counter defense 556."

"Stop them intercepting it," the Doctor ordered.

"I'm doing it now." A few key taps later and, "556 neutralized."

He ripped the mobile off the port connecting it to the speaker. "Good boy."

They crouched the corner, huddled next to one another. Rey's heart was so loud in her ears, it was the only thing she could hear. Like an earthquake, Rose had said—that's exactly what it would feel like. If they managed to survive, their little box would get thrown everywhere. She tried to think of it like a bad TARDIS ride, but the word earthquake just kept echoing in her ears.

"Nice knowing you three," Harried said. "Hannibal!"

_Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium_.

She got all the way to Titanium before her fragile hold on coherence snapped. The small space reminded her of being trapped between her bed and the collapsed wall. The air was filled with smoke and dust, just like it had been back then. It was dark, so dark that she couldn't make out a single thing.

She didn't know how long they were thrown about, but the next time she could think again, there was light coming from the doorway. Which, jarringly, was above and not in front of them. The Doctor was murmuring in her ear, close but not touching, and low enough that it was nearly inaudible. It took her a moment to realize that he was reciting elements. For her.

"Okay?"

She wet her lips. It took a couple of tries for the words to come out properly. "I will be."

He helped her out of the wreckage. They were filthy, covered in grime and dirt. Harriet looked around, taking in the destruction surrounding them and how at odds it felt that they were alright. "Made in Britain," she joked.

One of the military men rushed over "Are you alright?"

She flashed him her ID. "Harriet Jones, MP, Flydale North. I want you to contact UN immediately, tell the ambassadors the crisis is over and they can step down. Go on, tell the news!"

"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant said before hurrying away,

"Someone's got a hell of a job sorting this lot out. Oh, Lord! We haven't even got a Prime Minister!"

"Well, maybe you should have a go," the Doctor suggested.

"Me?" She laughed. "I'm only a back-bencher."

"I'd vote for ya," Rose told her.

"Now, don't be silly. Look, I'd better go and see if I can help." With one last nod, Harriet bid them goodbye. She climbed over the rubble towards the growing crowd of people, reassuring them that the crisis was over and the world was safe.

"I thought I knew her name," the Doctor said as he, Rey, and Rose walked away. "Harriet Jones—future Prime Minister. Elected for three successive terms—the architect of Britain's Golden Age."

They watched her fondly from a distance. Rey felt a stab of guilt, remembering the last time she met Harriet. She supposed that potential had always been there, they had just never noticed. Her ministerial term had begun with a strike she ordered, and it had ended in the same way. She would come full circle and still end up somewhere different than where she began.

Finally, they all went back. As Rose reunited with Jackie at her flat, the Doctor brought Rey back to the TARDIS. "Are you going to invite Mickey to join us," she asked, cradling her mug of tea.

"Ricky?" He was back to calling him by that name. "Why would I?"

"You were impressed this time," she noted. He scowled, and that was all she needed to know his answer.

As Rose tried to find a way to break it to Jackie that she wasn't staying, they tracked down the boy who had graffitied the TARDIS with white spray paint. It had been a surprise when Rey saw the words "BAD WOLF," though it really shouldn't have been. After all, they had been specifically scattered so that the Doctor, Rose, and herself would come across them.

Mickey came up to them with a newspaper as they idled, still waiting for Rose. "I just went down to the shop and I was thinking, you know, like the whole world's changed. Aliens and spaceships all in public. And here it is."

He showed them the headline. "Alien Hoax."

"How could they do that? They saw it."

The Doctor shrugged. "They're just not ready. You're happy to believe in something that invisible, but if it's staring you in the face, nope, can't see it. There's a scientific explanation for that. You're thick."

"We're just idiots," he agreed.

Rey gave the Doctor a look.

"Well," he considered, "not all of you."

"Yeah?"

He handed over a CD. "Present for you, Mickey. That's a virus. Put it online. It'll destroy every mention of me. I'll cease to exist."

"What do you want to do that for," Mickey asked even as he accepted the disk.

"Because you're right. I am dangerous. I don't want anybody following me."

As he spoke, the Tylers approached. Jackie was pleading with Rose to stay, and Rose was adamant on leaving again. A large, overstuffed backpack hung from her shoulders as a physical representation of her resolve to go.

Rey felt a whole host of emotions radiate from Mickey at the sight—melancholy, regret, a little anger, and a healthy amount of fear. "How can you say that—and then take her with you?"

"You could look after her," he offered. "Come with us."

Mickey shook his head. "I can't. This life of yours, both of yours, it's just too much. I couldn't do it. Don't tell her I said that."

"We won't," she promised.

"I'll get a proper job," Jackie said, trying to bargain. "I'll work weekends, I'll pass my test and if Jim comes 'round again, I'll say no. I really will."

"I'm not leaving 'cos of you," Rose said. "I'm traveling, that's all. And then I'll come back!"

"But it's not safe."

"Mum… if you saw it out there… you'd never stay home." She shrugged off her backpack and it landed with a heavy thud.

"Got enough stuff," the Doctor asked sarcastically.

"Last time I stepped in there, it was spur of the moment. Now I'm signing up. You're stuck with me. Haha." She turned to Mickey before he could reply. "Come with us. There's plenty of room."

Mickey sent a look over her shoulder. Rey nudged the Doctor lightly when he didn't get it. "No chance," he said. "He's ah, a liability. I'm not having him on board."

"We'd be dead without him," Rose argued.

"My decision is final."

"Sorry," she said to Mickey. They shared a light goodbye kiss.

"Good luck, then."

"You still can't promise me," Jackie said to the Doctor and Rey. "Either of you. What if she gets lost? What if something happens to you, and she's left all alone standing on some moon a million light years away—how long do I wait then?"

Rose put her hands on Jackie's shoulders so that she would face her. "Mum… You're forgetting—it's a time machine. I could go traveling around suns and planets and all the way out to the edge of the universe and by the time I get back, yeah—ten seconds would have passed. Just ten seconds. So stop worrying. See you in ten seconds time. Mum?"

They hugged tightly, and then Rose let go, picked up her bag, and walked through the TARDIS doors without looking back.

* * *

**Bit of a short update. Hopefully, the next chapter should be ready soonish... if I can remember to get around to editing it. **


	6. The Runaway Bride

"Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now—where am I?"

Rey would recognize that voice anywhere. She rounded the corner to see a familiar redhead, arguing with the Doctor. The sight wouldn't have been anything special, they bickered all the time like the best of friends did, if not for the fact that Donna was wearing a wedding dress. Well that, and that the Doctor didn't seem to know who she was.

Rey had never heard the story of how they met—spoilers, and Donna didn't want to talk about it. She figured it must have been something outrageous and life threatening, knowing the sort of life the Doctor led. The wedding dress certain covered the outrageous aspect, now all that was left was the running for their lives part.

"Inside the TARDIS," the Doctor replied, still completely bewildered. His eyes were red—had he been crying beforehand?

"The what?"

"The TARDIS."

"The what?"

"_The TARDIS!_"

"The what," Donna repeated for a third time.

"This place is called the TARDIS," Rey said. She hadn't meant to sneak up on Donna, but she had a habit of walking lightly, and Donna wasn't exactly at her most observant right now.

The Doctor, who had turned back to mind the controls, spun around to greet her and promptly stared. Rey resisted the urge to fidget under his gaze and wondered if she looked weird. Clara had convinced her to wear a dress for their trip to Lazul, a world where everything was entirely blue and green. The Doctor has placed a flower crown on her head moments before she had jumped.

"That's not even a proper word, you're just saying things," Donna complained. "And who the hell are you? Where did you come from?"

She pointed down the corridor. "It's actually an acronym."

"How did you get in here," the Doctor asked, snapping out of his daze.

"Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys? Oh my God, she's finally got me back. This has got Nerys written all over it."

"Who's Nerys?" Rey moved to stand by the Doctor.

"You're best friend," Donna shot back.

The Doctor looked her up and down, trying to find some explanation for how Donna had just appeared. "Hold on, wait a minute—what're you dressed like that for?"

"I'm going ten pin bowling," Donna said with false calm before yelling, "Why do you think, Dumbo? I was halfway up the aisle! I've been waiting all my life for this. I was just seconds away! And then you—I dunno, you drugged me or something!"

"I haven't done anything," he protested.

Rey started a diagnostic and frowned at the TARDIS's reaction. The scans were running much slower than normal. Was that because of whatever had brought Donna here or was it because of what the Doctor had been doing earlier? He hid it well, but sorrow still clung to him like a heavy cloak.

"We're having the police on you," Donna threatened. "Both of you! Me and my husband—as soon as he is my husband—we're gonna sue the living backsides off ya!"

The Doctor didn't say anything, turning back to the controls to check on the scan. Before anyone could stop her, Donna rushed at the doors. "No, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Don't—!"

The warning came too late, she had already thrown open the doors. Outside a supernova was raging on, nearly taking up the entire view from the doorway. The ultraviolet emissions were reacting with the phosphours in the flowers around Rey's head, causing them to light up like, well, like a blue star.

"You're in space," the Doctor said as calmly as he could given the present situation. He moved to stand by Donna, ready to react if she did anything… sudden. "Outer Space. This is my… spaceship. It's called the TARDIS."

"How am I breathing," Donna asked.

"Protective oxygen shell," Rey explained from her spot at the controls.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, she's Rey. You?"

"Donna."

He looked her up and down. "Human?"

"Yeah. Is that optional," she added sarcastically.

"Well, it is for me."

Donna didn't look very surprised. "You're an alien."

"Yeah."

"Is she an alien too?"

"Human," Rey confirmed. "Do you mind closing the doors? It's a little chilly." She'd jumped without her jacket and was feeling more than a little exposed. Years of hospital IVs and other injections had left their toll on her arms: track marks and scars that would probably give people the wrong idea.

The Doctor slammed the doors shut and ran back to the console. "But I don't understand it and I understand everything! This—this can't happen! There is no was a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside— Well, no human being other than Rey, but that's completely different. There must be a…" He suddenly grabbed a ophthalmoscope and used it to examine Donna's eye close up. "Impossible. Some sort of subatomic connection? Something in the temporal field? Maybe something pulling you into alignment with the Chronon shell. Maybe something macromining your DNA within the interior matrix. Maybe a genetic—"

Donna slapped him. Rey winced at the sound which seemed to almost echo throughout the console room. The Doctor could be very rude and thoughtless sometimes, but she didn't think it necessitated physical violence.

"What was that for?"

"Get me to the church!"

He dropped the instrument. "Right! Fine! I don't want you here anyway! Where is this wedding?"

"Saint Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System," she said in one breath. Donna's eyes then zeroed in on something over at one of the railings. She marched over to it, holding up the jacket like how the lawyers presented evidence in those police procedurals Martha liked to watch. "I knew it. Acting all innocent. I'm not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted? I suppose she's your helper, getting them to let down their guard."

Rey recognized the jacket as one of Rose's. Strangely, the sight of it caused the Doctor to deflate. He'd even lost his petulance, staring at the garment soberly. Objectively, Rey knew that Rose would stop traveling with them some day. She could even sort of guess when, but the how and why were spoilers that she forced herself not to think much about. "It belongs to a friend," she said plainly.

"Where is she, then? Popped out for a space walk?"

"She's gone." It sounded like it had taken all of the Doctor's strength to say those two words. They were uttered with no inflection and little tone to decipher.

"Gone where," Donna demanded.

"I lost her."

"Well, you can hurry and lose me," she said angrily. After a moment of watching, she finally realized that there was more to the story than was being said. "How do you mean, 'lost?'"

The Doctor walked towards her slowly, taking the jacket from her hands. "We're here," Rey announced. She glanced at the monitor and corrected herself. "Sort of."

They were in London all right, and at the right time, but they weren't in Chiswick or anywhere near Saint Mary's church. In fact, they were at the corner of a large street a few districts away. "I said 'Saint Mary's,'" Donna complained. "What sort of rubbish Martian are you? Where's this?"

He mostly ignored her, stroking the TARDIS with concern. "Something's wrong with her… it's like she's… recalibrating!" He rushed back inside, sliding past Rey and Donna as they exited out the street. "She's digesting."

"Is he always like that," Donna asked her.

Rey nodded. "You learn to get used to it. But I think today is a particularly stressing day."

Donna tensed beside her, finally realizing the discrepancy between the TARDIS interior and exterior. The Doctor, of course, didn't notice. "What have you eaten? What's wrong? Donna? You've really gotta think. Is there anything that might've caused this? Anything you might've done? Any sort of lien contacts? I can't let you go wandering off in case you're dangerous."

"Breathe," Rey reminded her.

"I mean, have you… have you seen lights in the sky? Or… did you touch something? Something—something different? Something strange? Something made out of a sort of metal or… who're you getting married to? Are you sure he's human? He's not a bit overweight with a zip around his forehead, is he?"

Donna took off, tearing down the road with a remarkable speed for her attire and footwear. They ran after her, quickly falling into step as she walked briskly, neck tense like she was forcing herself not to look back. "Leave me alone," she pleaded. "I just want to get married."

"Come back to the TARDIS," he implored her.

"No way. That box is too… weird."

"She's bigger on the inside, that's all," Rey said.

"Oh! That's all?" Donna sighed. With tears in her eyes she checked her watch. "Ten past three. I'm gonna miss it."

"You can phone them," the Doctor suggested. "Tell them where you are."

"How do I do that?"

"Haven't you got a mobile?"

She stopped and stared at him. "I'm in my wedding dress. It doesn't have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with pockets? When I went to my fitting, do you think I said 'Alison, the one thing I forgot to say is give me pockets?!'"

"This man you're marrying—what's his name," the Doctor asked.

"Lance," Donna sighed dreamily.

"Gotta like Lance," he muttered under his breath.

"What's wrong with a dress with pockets," Rey asked, sliding her hands into her own.

Donna made a sound of exasperation. "Oi! No stupid Martian and his— his— whoever you are is gonna stop me from getting married. To hell with the both of you!" And then she was running again.

"I'm— I'm not… I'm not… I'm not from Mars," he said after her retreating back.

"No," Rey agreed before taking off after Donna.

They found her on a busier street trying, and failing, to hail a taxi. The Doctor tried to help, but his attempts ended up with the exact same results: the driver ignoring them. "Do you have this effect on everyone," he asked Donna rudely. "Why aren't they stopping?"

"They think I'm in fancy dress."

A fourth taxi zoomed past. As he passed them, the driver honked his horn, rolled down his window, and hollered, "Stay off the scotch darlin'!"

"They think I'm drunk."

Two men driving by yelled, "You're fooling on one, mate!"

"They think I'm in drag," Donna bemoaned.

"Hold on, hold on." The Doctor put his thumb and index fingers between his lips and whistled loudly. Rey winced and covered her ears a little to late. On his left, Donna did the same. Loud and piercing aside, the sound was successful in causing a cab to come to a screeching halt in front of them. They slid into the backseat, and she was pressed against the door to give herself enough space.

"Saint Mary's in Chiswick, just off Hayden Road," Donna instructed. "It's an emergency, I'm getting married! Just… hurry up!"

"You know it'll cost you, sweetheart," the driver asked, completely relaxed. "Double rates today."

"Oh my God! Have you got any money," she asked the others.

Rey shook her head. "Um… no. And you," the Doctor asked Donna.

"Pockets," she repeated, gesturing violently.

The taxi grinded to a halt immediately, and the driver promptly kicked them out. Donna swore up a storm, insults both creative and very vulgar. "And that goes double for your mother," she yelled after the taxi as it drove off. "I'll have him. I've got his number. I'll have him. Talk about the Christmas Spirit."

"Is it Christmas," Rey asked, shivering. She knew it was definitely winter with how cold it was, but she didn't think Christmas. The Doctor shrugged off his coat and draped it over her. She had to hold up the ends so they wouldn't drag along the floor.

"Well, duh," Donna replied. "Maybe not on Mars, but here it's Christmas Eve." Suddenly, she punched the Doctor's arm. "Phone box! We can reverse the charges!"

"How come you're getting married on Christmas Eve," he asked.

"Can't bear it. I hate Christmas. Honeymoon in Morocco. Sunshine—lovely." He held the door open for her. Rey waited outside, not wanting to be stuck in a small space made for one with two other bodies squished in. "What's the operator? I've not done this in years. What do you dial? 100?"

She heard the whirl of the sonic. "Just— just call the direct."

"What did you do," Donna demanded to know.

"Something— Martian. Now, phone. Rey and I'll get money!" Across the street there was a cash machine. The man in front of them took his sweet time using it. She thought the Doctor might have actually pushed him aside if he hadn't left when he did. He cast a furtive glance around him before holding the sonic to the screen.

Rey rolled her eyes. If he was going to do something sneaky, he shouldn't make such a show of it. Acting natural like nothing was wrong was the key to not getting caught.

She played lookout while he committed theft, scanning the area for curious onlookers or ill-aimed CCTVs. A nearby band down the street caught her eye. "Aren't those the pilot fish from last year?" The row of trumpet players were all dressed as Santa Claus.

"Thanks for nothing, Spaceman," they heard Donna yell. She had managed to procure money from somewhere and was in a taxi quickly driving away. The driver was, of course given their luck, another Santa Claus. "I'll see you in court!"

"Donna!" The Doctor shouted after her but it was no use. One by one, trumpeters lowered their horns and held them out like missile launchers. Thinking fast, Rey jerked the sonic, still in the Doctor's hand, back towards the cash machine. Notes shot out of it and instantly they were surrounded by pedestrians clamoring for the bills. They ran back to the TARDIS using the cover of the distraction.

She flew through the doors at a dead sprint, nearly crashing into the console. Next to her the Doctor was uttering a steady stream of "hurry, hurry, hurry." He smacked the controls with the hammer to jumpstart the takeoff sequence. They didn't dematerialize, only blast up through the air and over buildings until they came across the motorway that would lead them to Chiswick. Rey pulled up the taxi's progression on the monitor while simultaneously trying her best to stop the controls from frying. There was definitely something wrong with the TARDIS.

"Behave," he scolded as a fresh shower of sparks erupted.

He ran to the doors while she kept them in flight as steady as she could. By this point, Donna had realized something was wrong. The monitor showed what was happening in real time as she tried to get out of the cab to no avail. "Open the door," the Doctor yelled.

"I can't, it's locked!"

He soniced it, allowing her to roll the window down.

"Santa's a robot," she shrieked.

"Donna, open the door."

While the exterior remained upright, the room inside tilted as the gravity alignment failed for a second. Rey was almost thrown to the floor and the Doctor nearly fell out the doors. "Donna, opened the door," he urged again.

"What for?"

"You've got to jump!"

"I'm not bleedin' flip jumping," she yelled. "I'm supposed to be getting married!"

They were suddenly falling behind as the driver stepped on the accelerator. "Rey," the Doctor yelled. She winced, braced herself, then pulled a lever that disabled the safety dampeners. It also set off some random explosions all over the console. They dipped down, skidding across the roof of a car before popping back up neck in neck with Donna's taxi.

"Listen to me—you've got to jump," he told Donna.

"I'm not jumping on a motorway."

"Whatever that thing is, it needs you. And whatever it needs you for, it's not good. Now, come on!"

"I'm in my wedding dress," Donna protested.

"Yes," he agreed, exasperated. "You look lovely! Come on!"

Hesitantly, still full of fear, Donna opened the door. Her hands clung onto the frame for dear life as she prepared to jump. "I can't do it."

"Trust me."

"Is that what you said to her? Your friend? The one you lost? Did she trust you?"

"Yes," he said firmly, the sorrow finally, finally abating. "She did. And she is not dead. She is so alive. Now, jump!"

With a scream, Donna leapt into his arms and they fell in a heap into the TARDIS. He sprung back on his feet, slamming the doors shut. Not missing a beat, Rey sent them shooting up in the air, dematerializing high in the clouds where no one would see and rematerializing on a faraway roof.

She gagged, the smell of smoke strong in her lungs and mouth. The explosions had stopped, but that just left them with charred controls. The Doctor ushered them out, waving his arms wilding in front of him as he tried to dissipate the smoke. "The funny thing is, for a spaceship, she doesn't really do that much flying. We'd better give her a couple of hours. You alright?"

Donna shrugged dejectedly. "Doesn't matter."

"Did we miss it," Rey asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, you can book another date," the Doctor said, trying to console her.

"'Course we can."

"Still got the honeymoon…"

"It's just a holiday now."

"Yeah… yeah… sorry," he said awkwardly.

"It's not your fault."

"Oh! That's a change."

"The important thing is that you're alive and okay," Rey told Donna.

"Wish we had a time machine," she joked. "Then we could go back and get it right."

The Doctor coughed. "Yeah, yeah. But… even if I did, I couldn't go back on someone's personal timeline. Apparently." Rey shot him a look. He winced and sat down next to Donna. "Oh, and you're better put this on."

Donna glared at the gold band he showed her. In poor taste, it looked much like a wedding ring. "Oh, do you have to rub it in?"

"It's a bio-damper," Rey explained. "The creatures after you can trace you. Wearing that should keep you hidden."

The Doctor slipped it on her finger. "With this ring, I thee bio-damp."

"For better or for worse," Donna joked. "So come on then. Robot Santas—what are they for?"

"Ah, your basic robo-scavenger. The Father Christmas stuff is just a disguise. They're trying to blend in. We met them last Christmas."

"Why, what happened then?"

Rey blinked. "There was a giant spaceship hovering over London and people lined up on the roofs as if ready to jump off."

"I had a bit of a hangover," Donna admitted like it explained why she didn't know. Must have been some hangover.

The Doctor gestured in the direction of the Powell Estate. "We spent Christmas Day just over there. With this… family. My friend, she had this family. Well, they were…" he paused, giving Rey a look. "Still…. gone now."

"Your friend," Donna began hesitantly. "Who was she?"

He ignored her. "Question is, what do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS? I don't know…" He started a scan with the sonic.

"What's your job," Rey asked. Maybe that was important.

"I'm a secretary."

The Doctor continued to scan her. "It's weird. I mean—you're not special, you're not powerful, you're not connected, you're not clever, you're not important…"

"Doctor," Rey scolded. Honestly, whenever he got wrapped into a mystery his already spotty brain-to-mouth filter completely disappeared.

"This friend of yours—just before she left, did she punch you in the face," Donna asked with a heavy glare, knocking the screwdriver aside. "Stop bleeping me!"

"What kind of secretary," Rey asked, steering the conversation back on track.

"I'm at HC Clements. It's where I met Lance. I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh really. I'd spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought—I'm never gonna fit in here. And then he made me a coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee. And Lance—he's the head of HR! He don't need to bother with me! But he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everybody was really snotty too. So that's how it started, me and him—one cup of coffee. That was it."

"When was this," the Doctor asked.

"Six months ago."

"Bit quick, to get married…"

"Well… he insisted." Rey had a feeling it was quite the opposite. "And he nagged… and he nagged me… And he just wore me down and then finally, I just gave in."

"What does HC Clements do," she asked.

"Oh, security systems, you know… entry codes, ID cards—that sort of thing. If you ask me, it's a posh name for 'locksmiths.'"

"Keys," the Doctor mused.

Donna was looking a little better. Certainly not as forlorn. She squared her shoulders and stood up. "Anyway, enough of my CV. Come on, it's time to face the consequences. Oh, this is gonna be so shaming. You can do the explaining, Martian-boy."

"He's not from Mars," Rey corrected.

"Oh, I had this great big reception all planned," Donna told them. "Everyone's gonna be heartbroken."

As it turned out, no one was heartbroken, not even Donna. If anything she was angry. The party was in full swing by the time they reached the reception hall, complete with the flashing lights, the loud music, and food. No one even looked worried, laughter and smiling faces were everywhere. It was more than a little heartless.

Donna's mother froze when she spotted her. Soon, the people around her noticed and a cold silence overtook the room as all eyes turned on them. "You had the reception without me?"

"Donna… what happened to ya?" Lance asked it almost too casually. He was certainly interested in knowing the answer, but it was far from the worried way a fiancé should ask their bride-to-be who'd disappeared on their wedding day before everybody's eyes.

"You had the reception without me," she repeated, voice rising with outrage.

"Hello," the Doctor chirped cheerfully in the middle of the awkward pause. "I'm the Doctor. This is Rey."

"They had the reception without me," Donne said for a third time to them.

"Evidently so," Rey agreed.

"Well, it was all paid for—why not," one of the guests nastily asked.

"Thank you, Nerys," Donna snapped.

Her mother, Sylvia, approached her. "Well, what were we supposed to do? I got your silly little message in the end—'I'm on Earth?' Very funny. What the hell happened? How did you do it? I mean, what's the trick because I'd love to know—"

And all of a sudden, the stillness was broken. Everyone spoke at once, voices overlapping until it was incoherent. The tones ranged from joking to demanding to accusing. Donna burst into crocodile tears that were the slightest bit genuine, silencing all of them.

The anger became pity, and Lance pulled her into his arms. She continued to cry into his shoulder as everyone applauded the love-filled action that wasn't really full of anything in Rey's opinion. Donna snuck a wink back at them through her false tears.

When she was done, the party went on as if it had never stopped. Donna was on the dance floor with Lance while Rey and the Doctor lounged at the back near the bar. She had returned his coat, having picked up one of her own in their brief trip from the roof to the reception hall.

Amazingly, the flowers on her head remained intact throughout the ordeal.

She stole a phone from a nearby man. He was a bit sleazy—Rey saw him ogling at some of the women at the reception, staring at their chests or behinds when he thought they weren't looking. Using the pilfered mobile, and the sonic to help speed through the results, she ran a search on HC Clements.

Sole Prop. TORCHWOOD, was displayed on the screen. Torchwood—Captain Zach had said that before, back when they were on that base orbiting the black hole. Was it a coincidence, or was Torchwood like Bad Wolf or a certain sketch, following them throughout time and space?

Next to her, the Doctor tensed. When she looked up at him the sadness was back like it had never left. He reached out, and for a second she thought he would touch her face. His hand went up instead, lightly grazing the crown of blue flowers. "We went to Lazul."

"I did. You will," she corrected automatically.

"Did you like it there?"

"It was beautiful. There were so many different shades of green and blue, and the fireworks…" They weren't fireworks in the traditional sense of gunpowder and sparks. Rather, there were flowers the size of building that bloomed only once every few decades. When they did, the spores light up the sky in a dazzling display of colour. "You took me for my birthday. I'm 19 now."

He leaned in close, eyes crinkling as he smiled. "Happy Birthday."

"Do you think that man with the camera recorded Donna's disappearance," she asked, nodding to the man in question. He was filming now as well, equipment set up in the corner so he could see the rest of the hall. The Doctor sighed, then brightened up. "Let's go ask him."

"I taped the whole thing," he told them. "They've all had a look. They said 'sell it to _You've Been Framed_.' I said 'more like the news.' Here we are…"

He fast-forwarded the recording to the start of the ceremony. They watched Donna begin her walk down the aisle, a wide, satisfied smile on her face. Suddenly, she started glowing. The camera zoomed in on her face just in time to catch her shock as she dissolved in a spray of golden particles.

"Can't be," the Doctor gasped. "Play it again?"

"Clever, mind," the cameraman said as he rewound the footage. "Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping."

Rey recalled something she'd read in the TARDIS library. Some of the books were less printed word on plant-based medium and more interactive sources of information. Some even had holograms that would pop up and play for out or around you in real time. Most of the books that had anything to do with Time Lords were in Gallifreyan, but a few, including the one she had in mind, were translated into other languages.

"Are those Huon Particles," she asked dubiously.

"What's that," the cameraman asked.

"That's impossible," the Doctor said. "That's… ancient! Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years! So old that…"

"It's can't be hidden by a bio-damper," Rey finished. Her eyes scanned the crowd, looking for Donna.

The Doctor ran over to a window. She followed, peering over his shoulder to see a group of robotic Santas were slowly making their way towards the reception. Quickly, they rushed back to Donna. "Donna! Donna, they've found you."

"But you said I was safe," she protested.

"The bio-damper doesn't work. We've got to get everyone out."

There were so many people. Donna glanced around at the people she'd invited. "Oh my God—it's all my family…"

"Out the back door," Rey suggested. They ran, but the robots had gotten here first already. "Or not."

The Doctor quickly darted to another window. "We're trapped," Donna said nervously.

Each of the robots was holding a remote of some sort. In unison they raised them, all aimed at the fixture at the center of the room. "Christmas trees," the Doctor noted.

"What about them," Donna asked.

"They can kill," Rey told her.

The Doctor ran into the crowd, yelling at the people to get away from it. Donna tried to help, ushering a group of playing girls off to the side. Typically, her mother was having none of that. "Oh, for God's sakes," Sylvia complained. "That man's an idiot! Why? What's a Christmas tree gonna… oh!"

The decorations floated away from the branches, swaying slowly through the air as if dancing. Thinking it was some kind of show, the crowd chattered excitedly to one another. Suddenly, the babbles dive-bombed around the room, exploding upon contact with anything solid.

Chaos erupted. Screams mixed with booms as the people scrambled for cover. The Doctor and Rey ran to the DJ stand while the robots lined up across from them.

"Better cover your ears," he suggested quickly before grabbing the microphone. She instantly obeyed, not liking where this was headed. "Oi! Santa! Word of advice: if you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver, don't let him near the sound system."

The most horrendous, high-pitched, screeching noise amplified by a thousand rang out from the speakers. Her bones ached from the vibrations, and her teeth wanted to fall out of her gums. The robots shook violently, threatening an explosion before they simply fell to pieces. Not soon enough, the Doctor pulled the sonic away from the bass. He helped Rey up, rubbing his thumb soothingly over the skin of her inner wrist.

"Please never do that again," she asked, possibly much too loudly since she could barely hear herself.

He gave her a sheepish smile before leading her over to the pile of parts to examine. Slowly, everyone around them began to get back on their feet. Donna was in the middle of the relief effort, taking charge. "Look at that—remote control for the decorations," the Doctor said, holding up one of the devices.

Rey picked up a bulky, circular piece of machinery. "Receiver. I don't think these robots are scavengers anymore. It looks like someone's taken control of them."

"Never mind all that," Donna said dismissively. "He's a doctor—people have been hurt."

"Nah, they wanted you alive, look." He held up one of the decorations. "They're not active now."

"All I'm saying—you could help."

Rey held up the receiver to her ear. "I think there's still a signal," she told him.

"Well, what'er we waiting for? Gotta think of the big picture. There's someone behind this, directing the robo-force." With one hand still holding Rey's gloved one, he took off, dashing out to the street. After a few seconds, Donna burst out the doors to follow them. Lance came out next, following her.

"But why is it me," Donna asked. "What have I done?"

"The controller will have the answers," Rey pointed out. She transferred the signal from the receiver to the sonic, which was a much better tracker. "The signal is coming from up there."

"The roof," Donna asked.

"Space," she corrected lightly, pointing above them. The blue light on the tip of sonic suddenly stopped flashing. "It's being blocked now."

"Donna, we've got to get to your office, HC Clements," the Doctor told her. "I think that's where it all started. Lance—is it Lance? Can you give us a lift?" He didn't give the other man time to reply, taking off in the direction of the parking garage. The ride to Donna's workplace was maddeningly slow. Lance drove like he was on his way to the gallows, and he had horrendous taste in music.

For a company that dealt with security, its own was laughably easy to bypass. The sonic made short work of the scanners at the front door, and Rey picked the lock that separated the section containing Donna's office with ease. The Doctor went straight to the computer, booting it up. "This might just be locksmiths, but HC Clements was bought up 23 years ago by the Torchwood Institute."

"Who are they," Donna asked.

The Doctor gave Rey a look. She huffed but obligingly covered her ears and looked away. He gave her another look, this time apologetic, as he motioned that it was okay for her to listen again. "That big picture, Donna—you keep on missing it," he told her before darting to another computer. "Torchwood was destroyed, but HC Clements stayed in business. I think… someone else came in and took over the operation." He hit the monitor.

"But what do they want with me?"

Rey took over at the computer—the Doctor had little patience for outdated technology and anything that took longer than the TARDIS he considered outdated. He gave Donna his full attention, intending to comfort her but instead failing miserably. "Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy. And that's a problem because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS. See? That's what happened. Say… that's the TARDIS." He picked up a mug. "And that's you." He picked up a pencil. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetized and _whap_!" He threw the pencil into the mug. "You were pulled inside the TARDIS."

"I'm a pencil inside a mug," Donna asked weakly.

"Yes you are. 4H. Sums you up."

"What was HC Clements working on," Rey asked Lance. "Any top secret projects or special operations?"

"I don't know, I'm in charge of personnel," he said a tad too defensively. "I wasn't project manager." Rey soniced the screen, growing frustrated herself with how slow it was working. "Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?"

"This place makes keys," she said as the building plan finally loaded. There was something of note to that. "Oh."

"'Oh,'" the Doctor repeated questioningly. He came around to see what she was looking at. "Oh, look at that, we're on the third floor."

Rey was already up on her feet, headed for the lift. "The building schematics show that there's a basement under the reception area," she explained to Donna and Lance. The lift alighted with a soft ping and they all shuffled inside. "But in the elevator there's an extra button marked 'lower basement.' So there's an entire floor that doesn't exist on the official plans."

It was a little half-baked in her opinion. If you were going through the trouble of creating a secret floor, you shouldn't flaunt its existence in an elevator all employees had access too. What if someone noticed?

"Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor," Lance asked.

"No, she's showing you this building's got a secret floor," the Doctor answered with an eye roll.

"It needs a key," Donna noted.

Rey raised a brow at her. "Would you prefer the sonic or the old fashioned way," she asked. They would take about the same time.

"Right then, thanks you two, we can handle this—see you later," the Doctor bid the couple as he soniced the lock.

"No chance, Martian. You're the man and woman who keep saving my life, I ain't letting you two out of my sight."

"Going down," he announced humorously.

"Lance," she asked pointedly.

He shifted his weight. "Maybe I should go to the police."

"Inside," Donna commanded.

"To honour and obey," the Doctor asked as the other man meekly joined them.

"Tell me about it, mate."

"Rude," Rey said as the doors closed.

The lower level was dark, damp, and musky. The air was sharp with the scent of rust, and the green light that lit the corridor dimly made the walls looked like they were about to close in.

"Where are we," Donna asked. "Well, what does on down here?"

"Let's find out…" The Doctor took Rey's hand as they stepped out of the lift and walked down the hall.

"Do you think Mr. Clements knows about this place?"

"It's hard to miss something happening right beneath your building," Rey remarked.

The Doctor stopped suddenly as something caught his eye. "Oh, look—transport."

It was hard not to find their current situation amusing. The five of them, all lined up in a row, rolled down the corridor on electric scooters. Donna lost it first, looking at Lance and bursting out with laughter. The Doctor soon joined in. Rey liked it when he laughed like that—the kind of gut-clenching, gasping for air, _stop I can't breathe_ laughing.

But all good things had to come to an end. They rolled to a stop before a door with a sign reading "Torchwood—authorised personnel only." Rey hopped off her scooter as the Doctor turned the wheel sealing the door. A ladder was on the other side, extending as far up as the eye could see.

"Wait here. Just need to get my bearings. Don't…" He pointed to Donna and Lance. "…do anything. And look out for Rey."

He started up the latter. "You're not going with him," Donna asked. "I thought the two of you were like two peas in a pod."

She shook her head. The metal was covered in rust and grime, mildew and mold. She didn't want to touch it even with gloves on, much less go inside a narrow space surrounded by all of that.

"Donna… have you thought about this," Lance asked, trying to convince her to turn back. "Properly? I mean, this is serious! What the hell are we gonna do?"

"Oh, I thought July," she said distractedly, thinking he was talking about the wedding. She flashed him a bright smile before turning her attention back to the Doctor's back.

He jumped off the ladder when he came back, landing with an exclamation. "Thames flood barrier! Right on top of us. Torchwood snuck in and built this place underneath."

"What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark," Donna asked incredulously.

"I know," the Doctor said with false enthusiasm. "Unheard of."

"Is it life imitating art or art imitating life," Rey mused, thinking of the number of books with that exact scenario. Probably a little of both.

Further down the hall was a room that housed a well-equipped laboratory of sorts. "Oh, look at this," the Doctor gushed, taken in by the setup. "Stunning! Particle extrusion!"

"What does it do?"

"Whoever is in charge is manufacturing Huon particles," Rey explained. The test tubes bubbled away happily.

"'Course, my people got rid of Huons," the Doctor added. "They unraveled the atomic structure."

"Your people," Lance asked suspiciously. "Who are they? What company do you represent?"

The Doctor waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, I'm a freelancer."

"They must have been using the river," Rey noted. "Extruding the particles through a flat hydrogen base would result in Huon particles in liquid form." That nudged something in her brain. Something wasn't clicking, like a loose connection.

"And that's what's inside me," Donna asked. The Doctor picked up a test tube full of the bubbling liquid. The contents emitted a golden glow when he gently shook it, and so did Donna. "Oh my God!"

"The particles must be inert on their own," Rey concluded, otherwise the entire room would have been glowing. "A living being must be needed to catalyze them."

"Saturate the body and then… Ha!" A sort of frenzied enthusiasm overtook the Doctor. Suddenly, he was full of energy; the kind of almost-mania that she usually associated with his previous regeneration. "The wedding! Yes, you're getting married, that's it! Best day of your life, walking down the aisle—oh, your body's a battleground! There's a chemical war inside! Adrenaline, acetylcholine, _wham_ go the endorphins, on you're cooking! Yeah, you're like a walking oven! A pressure cooker, a microwave, all churning away, the particles reach boiling point, _shazam_!"

Donna slapped him.

"What did I do this time?"

"The better question would be what you didn't do," Rey told him.

"Are you enjoying this," Donna asked. She was taking in deep, gulping breaths, and shaking slightly. She was scared. "Right, just tell me—these particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe?"

"Yes," he said unconvincingly.

Rey glared.

"Doctor… if your lot got rid of Huon particles… why did they do that?"

"Repeated and prolonged exposure often led to death," Rey explained. "It's like radiation—a little is fine, a lot isn't."

"Oh my God…"

"I'll sort it out, Donna," the Doctor promised. "Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I'm not about to lose someone else."

A series of banging and crashing noises echoed around them from all directions. "Oh, she is long since lost," a voice said ominously. The far wall slide open to reveal a chamber on the other side. In the center of the floor was a giant hole. "I have waited so long, hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!"

"Someone's been digging," the Doctor noted. "Oh, very Torchwood. Drilled by laser."

Rey looked down. It was pitch black as far as she could see. "How for down does it go?"

"Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!"

"Really," the Doctor asked. "Seriously? What for?"

"Dinosaurs," Donna said immediately, inching towards the edge.

"What?"

"Dinosaurs," she said less certainly.

"What are you on about, dinosaurs?"

"That film, 'Under the Earth,' with dinosaurs. Trying to help!"

"That's not helping."

"Actually, you'd have better luck going upwards to find dinosaurs than down," Rey piped in to add. All the talk was making her miss Siluria.

"Really?"

"Such a sweet couple," the voice cooed.

"Only a madman talks to thin air and trust me, you don't want to make me mad. Where are you," the Doctor asked.

"High in the sky, floating so high on Christmas Night."

"We didn't come all this way to talk on the intercom! Come on, let's have a look at you!"

"Who are you with such command?"

He took her hand in his hand, thumb slipping up her sleeve to rub her wrist lightly. Rey was worried. The Doctor didn't usually touch her this much. It was an act of comfort, but what had happened that he needed this?

"I'm the Doctor, and this is Rey."

"Prepare your best medicines, doctor-man, for you will be sick at heart."

The voice's owner suddenly teleported into the chamber. She looked a little bit like someone had attached a vaguely human torso onto a spider's legs, and then painted the entire thing red. She had six eyes, two where they were normally positioned on a human, and then four evenly spaced above them.

"The Racnoss… but that's impossible, you're one of the Racnoss!"

"Empress of the Racnoss," she corrected with a hiss.

"If you're the Empress, where's the rest of the Racnoss," the Doctor asked. "Or… are you the only one?"

"Such a sharp mind," she said.

"That's it, the last of your kind."

"The Racnoss are from the Dark Times," Rey explained to Donna. "A few billion years ago. They were omnivores that devoured whole planets."

"Racnoss are born starving, is that our fault?"

"They eat people," Donna asked.

"Did your boss used to wear black and white shoes," she asked suddenly.

"He did! We used to laugh, we used to call him the fat cat in spats."

Rey pointed upwards above them. A giant web was woven across the ceiling and, just barely visible from a large cocoon of webbing was the lower half of a pair legs whose feet were wearing black and white shoes.

Donna gasped. "Oh my God!"

"Mm, my Christmas dinner," the Empress said, cackling.

"You shouldn't even exist," the Doctor protested. "Way back in history, the Fledgling Empires went to war against the Racnoss—they were wiped out."

"Except for me."

"But that's what I've got inside me, that Huon energy thing. Oi," Donna snapped. "Look at me, lady, I'm talking. Where do I fit in? How comes I get all stacked up with these Huon particles? Look at me, you! Look me in the eye and tell me."

"The bride is so feisty," the Empress said, like someone might have said "this dog is so friendly."

"Yes I am! And I don't know what you are, you big… thing. But a spider's just a spider and an axe is an axe! Now, do it!"

As Donna had been trying to distract the Empress, Lance had somehow managed to sneak behind her and up to the balcony where she'd appeared. He had a red fire axe in his hands, positioned to swing down. On Donna's cue he almost struck. The Empress reared around hissing—then they both stopped their attacks and started laughing.

The disgust Rey felt was visceral.

"That was a good one," Lance joked with the Empress. "Your face!"

"Lance is funny," she said.

"What," Donna asked, failing to— no, refusing to understand.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said quietly.

"So sorry," Rey said.

"Sorry for what," Donna asked. "Lance, don't be so stupid! Get her!"

"God, she's thick," Lance complained, looking down at Donna with pity. "Months I had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map."

"I don't understand," she said weakly.

"You met him at the office," Rey said. Her chest ached. "He made you coffee."

"What?"

"Every day, I made you coffee," Lance said slowly and loudly.

"He was dosing you with the liquid particles," Rey explained.

"He was poisoning me?"

"It was all there in the job title," the Doctor pointed out. "The Head of Human Resources."

"This time, it's personnel," Lance punned. He and the Empress laughed again.

"But… we were getting married," Donna protested.

He scoffed. "Well, I couldn't risk you running off. I had to say yes. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavor Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap yap yap—'oh, Brad and Angelina'—Atkins Diet, feng shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me, dear God, the never ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia. I deserve a medal."

With every word that he spoke, Donna seemed to shrink in on herself even more. She was nearly crying by the end, and still she didn't want to believe it.

"Oh, is that what she's offered you," the Doctor asked. "The Empress of the Racnoss? What are you? Her consort?"

"It's better than a night with her."

"But I love you," Donna said truthfully.

Lance threw it back in her face. "That's what made it easy. It's like you said, Doctor—the big picture—what's the point of it all if the human race is nothing? That's what the Empress can give me. The chance to… go out there. To see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don't you, Doctor?"

"Who is this little physician," the Empress asked.

"What she said—Martian."

"Oh, I'm sort of… homeless," the Doctor said vaguely. "But the point is, what's down here? The Racnoss are extinct. What's gonna help you four thousand miles down? That's just the molten core of the Earth, isn't it?"

"I think he wants us to talk," Lance said snidely.

"I think so too," the Empress agreed.

"Well, tough! All we need is Donna!"

"Kill this chattering littler doctor-man and his little Rey!"

Courageously, Donna stepped in front of them protectively. "Don't you hurt them!"

"No, no, it's alright," the Doctor told her, unconcerned.

"No, I won't let them," Donna protested.

"At arms," the Empress commanded. Lined along the walls were robots, each with their guns aimed right at them.

"Ah, now. Except," the Doctor said, trying to be clever.

"Take aim!"

"Well, I just want to point out the obvious—"

"They won't hit the bride," the Empress assured him. "They're such very good shots."

"No, he's trying to tell you that when the Huon particles in Donna activated, she was drawn into his ship. So if he reverses it, he can call the ship to her," Rey said plainly. She pulled out the test tube she'd slipped in her pocket when they left the lab. It was always good to have an escape route. Shaking it lightly, the particles and Donna both began to glow again.

"Fire!"

Just in time, the TARDIS materialized around them, protecting them from the barrage. "Off we go," the Doctor said, not sparing a second before running to the console. He swiftly dematerialized them, setting them back in flight through the Time Vortex. "Oh, you know what I said before about time machines? Well, I lied. And now we're gonna use it. We need to find out what the Empress of the Racnoss is digging up. If something's buried at the planet's core, it must've been there since the beginning. That's just brilliant. Molto bene! I've always wanted to see this. Donna, Rey—we're going further back than I've ever been before."

"Doctor," Rey said quietly, still standing beside Donna. The other woman's shoulders were shaking with the force of the tears pouring down her face. Silent crying was the worst sort—it was the hopeless kind of crying, the kind that only happened when people were ashamed but still couldn't stop the tears. Donna's heart was in pieces, shredded viciously because some man thought he was entitled and didn't care who he hurt to get what he wanted.

Hesitantly, she was new at this after all, Rey led Donna to the jump seat. She put a hand on Donna's back and patted awkwardly.

They arrived momentarily at their destination. The TARDIS, still fairly damaged from their stunt earlier on the motorway, clicked a little as it cooled down. Donna's tears had run out by now, but she was still shaking. Small hitches escaped her like hiccups or sobs she couldn't keep down.

"We've arrived… want to see," The Doctor asked carefully.

"I s'pose," Donna said halfheartedly.

"I think the scanner is a bit small for this. The old fashioned way might be best," Rey suggested. She led the way to the doors. "Come on."

"No human's ever seen this," the Doctor said. "You two will be the first."

"All I want to see is my bed," Donna told him.

"Donna Noble—welcome to the creation of the Earth."

Rey opened the doors and could instantly see the change in Donna. Wonder and awe swiftly overtook her misery. Before them was a field of space where the Earth would eventually form. Enormous rocks floated causally by, lit up by the sun in the distance. Coloured dust and gas clouds swirled in a breathtaking display. Rey's flowers glowed to, adding to the spectacle.

"This is 4.6 billion years in the past," she narrated. "The Solar System hasn't even formed yet, just dusk and rocks and gas. The sun is brand new, just starting to burn."

"Where's the Earth," Donna asked.

"Right here," she said. "In the dust all around us."

"Puts the wedding in perspective. Lance was right. We're just… tiny."

"No, but that's what you do," the Doctor told her. "The human race. Making sense out of chaos. Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful, but only if it's being observed."

"So, I came out of all this?"

"Isn't that brilliant"

A particularly large rock floated lazily past them. "I think that's the Isle of Wight," Donna joked. Her laugh was a little forced, but it was a start.

"Eventually, gravity takes hold," the Doctor continued. "Say, one big rock, heavier than the others, starts to pull other rocks towards it. All the dust and gas and elements get pulled in, everything, piling until you get the…"

"Earth," Donna finished.

"So the question now is: what was that first rock?"

Right on cue, a pentagonal mass emerged through the clouds. "The Racnoss," the Doctor whispered. Then suddenly, he was dashing back to the controls, turning a wheel on the console frantically. "Hold on—the Racnoss are hiding from the war! What's it doing?"

"Exactly what you said," Donna told him as the rocks, the dust, and the gas all came rushing towards the Racnoss, pulled together by gravity.

"They didn't bury something at the centre of the earth," Rey realized. "They became it. The first rock."

The TARDIS shook violently, nearly knocking them off their feet. Rey quickly slammed the doors shut so no one would fall outside. "What was that," Donna asked.

"Trouble," the Doctor replied. Try as he did to stop it, the shaking quickly got worse.

"What the hell's it doing?!"

"Remember that little trick Rey pulled—particles pulling particles? It works in reverse—they're pulling us back." He frantically tried to pilot them away, but the pull was too strong. They went tumbling back through the Vortex.

"Well, can't you stop it," Donna yelled. "Hasn't it got a handbrake? Can't you reverse or warp or beam or something?"

"Backseat driver," he complained.

Rey reached under the console to pull out a familiar board. "We can use the extrapolator."

"The extrapolator! Genius!" The Doctor beamed widely at her. "Can't stop us, but it should give us a good bump!" He waited until the second just before they would finish materializing back in the chamber to whack it. With a jolt, the TARDIS did the equivalent of a rock skipping on the water and reappeared down the corridor. "We're about 200 yards to the right. Come on!"

They ran back to the door leading up to the Thames Flood Barrier. The Doctor had his stethoscope out, listening to something behind the door. "But what do we do," Donna asked through heaving breaths, sounding scared and very far away.

"I don't know! I make it up as I go along! But trust me, I've got a history. Ask Rey."

"Doctor…" At first she'd thought it was all the noise from the protesting TARDIS as it was essentially dragged back. Now that they were in the mostly silent corridor though, she realized what was going on. The Doctor was instantly by her side, pulling the eartips down and looking at her with concern.

"Oh my God," Donna gasped. It sounded barely louder than a whisper. She had always wondered what it looked like from the outside when she jumped. Was it like she was there one second and gone the next, or did she slowly fade out from the time and space she was leaving? Now she knew it was more likely the latter than the former.

But why did it have to be now? They were still in the middle of things, just barely having figured out what was going on. She felt a little like the time she'd spent four days reading a novel—and that was a long time for her, she usually zoomed through them—only to find someone had torn out the last three chapters that included the climax and resolution.

The Doctor looked grim. Sad. Like he always did when she jumped, the sort of resigned acceptance where he knew he could do nothing to stop what was happening. "I'll see you soon," she just managed to say before she was gone.

* * *

It started out as the best day of Donna's life. Then it became the worst. And now, finally, it settled on the weirdest. She didn't know what to think. In a single day she had gone from engaged to single, normal to having discovered she was being poisoned, traveling through time, and surviving red alien spiders.

And then there was the Doctor and Rey. They were the strangest, scariest, most wonderful people she'd ever met. He was all bouts of mania and melancholy, rude and childish antics that hid whatever traumatic experiences were still haunting him. She came off as cold and awkward, but Donna would never forget how Rey was the first to notice when she was upset, or how she tried to comfort her in her own way.

They were equally matched in their strangeness, just in completely different ways. If she had to pick, though, Rey probably had the Doctor beat. She had just disappeared before Donna's eyes, faded away like a ghost or something! The Doctor had said it was normal, explained it in that rapid, not-very-sensical way of his.

"Look, Rey does this thing where she jumps through time and space along a fixed timeline—mine. And it's fine. It's normal. That's what she does." His tone, implied that it was anything but fine. Then he mumbled something about "astral projection" and "spoilers" that made even less sense and by then, Donna was almost glad to have been dragged off.

Except not really. It was plainly evident to her with all the fire and water and explosions that the Doctor should not be left alone. Ever. She had thought he was bad when Rey was there, but with the other girl missing it was like he had been dialed up from ten to a thousand.

The snow was beautiful, at least, even if it terrified her. Controlling the weather. Time travel. She felt like she had been transported into one of those Harry Potter movies. She couldn't say yes when the Doctor invited her to come with, it was just too much for her.

"Tell you what I will do though—Christmas dinner. Oh, come on."

"I don't do that sort of thing," he told her.

"You did it last year, you said so. And you might as well because Mum always cooks enough for twenty." He looked like he was mulling over the matter for a few seconds before finally pretending to give in. Donna had almost thought she managed to convince him until that time machine of his started disappearing again. "Doctor! Doctor!"

Amazingly, it worked. He popped his head back out. "Blimey, you can shout."

"Am I ever gonna see you again? Or Rey?"

"If we're lucky."

"Just… promise me one thing: find someone. And before you go off and start saying that you don't need anyone, don't. 'Cause I know Rey would say the same thing so if you won't listen to me, listen to her."

His face went unreadable. For a moment, she thought she'd overstepped her bounds. But then again, Donna never really cared about that.

"And just… make sure she knows."

* * *

**Who said they would update soon? Did I say I would update soon? Are you sure?**

**In all honesty, I am sorry for the delay. I had about 80% of this already written when the previous chapter was published… then my laptop crashed. It's fixed now, but I lost my draft, which led to a long case of writer's block.**

**I hope it's not weird to have another "Christmas special" so soon after the last one, especially in May, but like Rey I have no concept of time or order in my life. Until the next chapter!**


	7. The Beast Below

Amy patted her back sympathetically as Rey clenched her teeth and did her best to ignore the burning, itching sensation that had overtaken her leg. Rory was having a go at the Doctor, and she was surprised the Ponds's positions weren't reversed. Usually it was Amy yelling and Rory trying to comfort.

Her ankle spasmed and she hissed as fresh pain laced up her leg. Amy's hand froze an inch from her back. Rory and the Doctor stopped arguing. "I'm fine," she assured them.

"You're not fine," Amy huffed moodily. "Your leg is broken."

"It's healing." It was, it was just healing painfully.

Angeland was ranked in the top ten amusement parks of the universe, according the brochure that had been provided with a map of the park upon entry. Most of their attractions were gravity based—as in gravity defying—but there were a number of reality augmented games as well as a few more traditional rides. It was supposed to have been a day of loose, carefree fun.

And then a virus in the main computer bank corrupted the VR system and turned it into a hellscape from which no one who was plugged in could escape, including Amy and Rory. The safety protocols went down; injury and death were suddenly possible, with real world consequences, and trying to forcibly unplug players would send them into a state of shock. The virus spread slowly, invading other systems and turning the park against them.

It ended well enough when the Doctor was finally able to create an antivirus. Rey had gotten caught in the field of one of the anti-gravity rides, but there had been a short blip between rebooting the system and the safety protocols kicking back in. She ended up falling and breaking her leg. The staff insisted treating her, saying it was the least they could do, and now here she was, hooked up to a machine that sped up her recovery time but also left her feeling like she wished she never had a right leg to break in the first place.

But really, for once, none of it had been the Doctor's fault. She couldn't understand why Rory was so upset with him. The break had been clean, and they were set up in a relief tent rather than an infirmary or hospital. The device was almost done, and soon she'd be as good as new.

"That's not the point," Rory protested. "You shouldn't have been hurt to begin with."

"That's not something the Doctor can control," she pointed out. "Accidents happen."

Amy and Rory both flinched badly. The Doctor went silent, eyes a million light years away. Rey had obviously said something that struck a sore spot, but what? Was it about accidents? Did a bad one happen in their past?

Stupid spoilers.

The device beeped, and all at once the pain abated to cool relief. Just in time too, since Rey's hearing was quickly failing. Amy said something, but it was all noise that sounded like it came from far away.

_You're jumping_. Rory was over enunciating to help her read his lips.

She nodded. "I'll see you guys soon."

* * *

Of all the things she expected to see when she opened her eyes, it wasn't the Doctor reeling a younger Amy in like a fish by her ankle. Especially not an Amy who was, for some reason, dressed in a nightgown and robe. And while it certainly wasn't the strangest thing she had ever seen, it was the most unexpected so far.

"Rey!" The Doctor dropped Amy's leg like it had burned him. Thankfully, she was already mostly inside. "When did you get here?"

"Just now. Hello again."

"Hello." He smiled warmly.

Amy cleared her throat loudly. "Okay. Your box is a spaceship, it's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! Whoo! What are we breathing?"

"Air," Rey replied plainly. Must have been very early days for her. "When in flight, the air shell extends past the exterior walls. The Doctor has a tendency to open the doors when we're not otherwise in an atmosphere."

"Oh, 'the Doctor' does, does he," he asked, playfully cross. "What about all the times you do it? Or that time with Donna when she went nearly headfirst into the supernova?"

"That's interesting," Rey noted, pretending to ignore him. A large ship flew below them.

He pouted, but went back to the console, bringing them in closer. "29th Century. Solar flares roast the Earth and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations…"

Amy had somehow lost her balance while he spoke and had begun to drift outside. "Doctor?"

"…migrating to the stars," he continued, paying her no mind.

In the nick of time Rey grabbed onto the helm of her robe, stopping her from floating out past the air shell. Unfortunately, she'd over-calculated and lost balance herself. With one had clinging to the roof of the TARDIS and the other anchoring Amy, the two found themselves in quite a predicament.

"Isn't that amazing?"

"It is," Rey agreed. "But I think we would appreciate it more if we were inside." Finally noticing where they were, the Doctor scrambled to pull her and Amy back in. "You've found us a ship," she asked, straightening her out her shirt.

He pulled it up on the monitor. "This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland—all of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship—that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and… shopping. Searching the stars for a new home."

Amy chuckled at his little joke. "Can we go out and see?"

"'Course we can, but first, there's a thing."

"A thing," she repeated.

"An important thing. In fact, thing one—we are observers only." Rey resisted the urge to snort. "That's the one rule we've always stuck to in our travels. Rey and I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets."

She switched the display on the monitor from Starship UK's exterior to its interior and flipped through a few channels until she came to the shopping district. Sitting on a bench, alone, was a little girl. The Doctor looked at her, noting the same thing, and she nodded at him.

He left quickly while Amy kept talking, not noticing his absence. "So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah? Cos if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it—they've got to keep filming and let it die. That's got to be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard—being all, like detached and cold?"

The Doctor appeared on screen. Mandy had run off, and he was waving now, gesturing for them to join him.

"There's something else you should know about the Doctor," Rey told her seriously. It was important, one of those make-or-break things.

"What?"

"He lies a lot. I would say that's actually rule one of traveling with him." Amy frowned and examined her carefully, but didn't say anything. The Doctor was growing more obvious in his attempts to get their attention, comically waving his arms like he was the groundman in air traffic control in charge of guiding a plane's landing in the dark. Rather than exasperation, fondness bubbled in her chest and she hurried to join him.

"Welcome to London Market," the tannoy announced. "You are being monitored."

The ceiling was arched and made of glass. If she looked long enough that her eyes adjusted from the brightness inside, Rey could see stars twinkling in the distance. Inside, booths and stalls were set up. For the 29th Century, the design was remarkably like the 21st.

"I'm in the future," Amy said in a detached sort of awe. "Like hundreds… of years in the future. I've been dead for centuries."

"Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one," the Doctor said. He took her by the arm, his other hand taking Rey's, and started walking. "Nevermind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?"

"What's wrong?"

"Use your eyes, notice everything," the Doctor urged. "What's wrong with this picture?"

As strange as it sounded, the environment of Starship UK was sort of… familiar to Rey. It reminded her of Nevermore. Maybe it was the disconnect of somewhere feeling so similar but appearing so different, but she was starting to get an incredibly distracting headache. Then again, it could also be the new medication Dr. Usher had started her on recently. He'd warned her that migraines were a side-effect. Nurse Nora had snidely remarked that it wouldn't make much of a difference since it wasn't like Rey did anything anyway.

"Is it… the bicycles," Amy guessed, pointing to a rickshaw. "Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles."

"Says the girl in the nightie."

"Oh my God! I'm in my nightie."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Now, come on, look around you. Actually look."

"London Market is a crime-free zone," the tannoy helpfully announced at that moment.

"This is a starship, so life has gone back to the basics," Rey explained patiently. "You have bicycles, washing lines, street lamps that wide-up. It's probably sold as idyllic, but if you take a closer look, what do you see?"

He nodded, thumb starting to rub in circles on her inner wrist. "See, Rey's got her thinking cap on! Not that she ever has it off. But look: secrets and shadows, lives lived in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me." He let go of both girls, dashing over to a nearby table and stealing a glass of water from the couple sitting there. Gently, he set it on the floor, then set it back on the table. "Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish."

The water was very curious. Rey didn't blame Amy for not seeing it—she didn't have a frame of reference for what was normal for this time period. Actually, the Doctor was acting a little out of character too for not taking the time to explain it to her. It was almost as if he were trying to show her how much she didn't know. In which case, there were simpler, kinder ways to do so.

"Why did you just do that with the water?"

"Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now, where was I?"

"Police state," Rey reminded him, lips quirking ever-so-slightly downward.

Of course he noticed this, and gave her a sheepish look. "Do you see it yet," he asked Amy.

"Where?"

Rey nodded her head. "Over there." Mandy was sat on another bench, still crying. People around her just ignored it, walking past like they couldn't see.

The trio took a seat at the bench across from her. "One little girl crying," Amy observed. "So?"

"Crying silently," the Doctor corrected. "I mean, children cry 'cos they want attention, 'cos they're hurt or afraid. When they cry silently, it's 'cos they just can't stop. Any parent knows that."

Or anyone with an unhappy childhood.

"Are you a parent," Amy asked.

He jumped a little at the question but otherwise acted as if she hadn't said a word. "The point is," Rey said, bringing the topic back to Starship UK, "is that there are hundreds of parents and older siblings walking past her and not one stopped to ask why she's crying. Ergo: they already know why." And they didn't care. No—they had long since forced themselves not to care. Every corner of the marketplace was filled with fear and cultured indifference, and every person that walked past Mandy tried to mirror everyone else's carelessness that it made her feel vaguely sick.

"And since no one has done anything, it's something they don't talk about. Secrets," the Doctor said with a nod, picking up where she left off. "They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows—whatever they're afraid of—it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state."

A nearby lift dinged as it alighted on their floor. Silently, Mandy got up from her bench and entered it. "Where'd she go," Amy asked.

The Doctor reached into his pocket only for his hand to come up empty. Rey handed the ID she'd stolen from him. "Deck 207, Apple Sesame block, Dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner," he told Amy, handing her the ID. "This fell out of her pocket when I accidently bumped into her. Took me four goes; I don't have Rey's skills. Ask her about those things—the smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere."

"But they're just things," Amy protested.

"They're clean," Rey explained to her, standing up to join Amy in her task. She wasn't comfortable with just letting her loose in the wild on her own like that, especially when this was probably her first trip.

He pouted at her but didn't force the issue. "Everything else here is battered and filthy—look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Ask Mandy, 'Why are people scared of the things in the booths?'"

"No. Hang on—what do I do? I don't know what I'm doing here and I'm not even dressed!"

"It's this or Leadworth," he stated plainly. "What do you think? Let's see. What will Amy Pond choose? Ha-ha, gotcha. Meet me back here in half an hour."

Rey nodded, a mental clock ticking down in her head. As if to punish her for thinking, the throbbing in her head pulsed in time with it. Her jaw ached, and it felt like her temples were being squeezed.

Amy looked scared, glancing at Rey cautiously. "What are you going to do," she asked the Doctor.

"What I always do. Stay out of trouble."

"Badly," Rey added. "I'll tell you on the way," she said to Amy. Secrets were his thing, not hers. It was always better to know.

"So is this how it works, Doctor," Amy asked expectantly at his retreating back. He paused, looking unconcerned when he turned back to look at her. "You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?"

"Ask Rey," he said enigmatically, then walked away.

It took her a moment to figure out the lift. Rather than splitting the Starship into decks, there were three columns of ten buttons, each of which had a three dials underneath with ten more possible selections. Some of the buttons were grayed out so they couldn't be pressed, particularly at the top and bottom. 300 decks split into tens—each button signaled a next grouping of ten, then each dial was used to narrow down the choice to a specific deck within that grouping. Grey meant restricted.

"So where's the Doctor going," Amy asked as the life rode up.

"Engine room. The water glass test was to check the vibrations—they're nonexistent."

"Huh?"

"It's only the 29th Century," Rey explained. "To power a ship this big the engines would have to be enormous, and loud. But look, you can't even feel them, can you?"

Amy took a moment to test it out. "How did you know that," she asked. "I mean, you're human. The Doctor told me that you're from my time. So how did you know that?"

"I read." She looked unconvinced. "Also, you tend to pick up on these sorts of things quickly when you travel with the Doctor." The lift doors opened and Rey gestured for Amy to step out.

They found Mandy on Dean Street, no longer crying, but looking put out. Or, alternatively, Mandy found them. "You're following me. Saw you watching me at the marketplace."

Amy handed her the ID. "You dropped this."

"Yeah, when your friend kept bumping into me."

"He's not very subtle," Rey agreed as they came upon a secluded area, kept out of sight by barriers. Over the top of the gray drapes blocking out the view, she could just barely make out a sign for an electronic store. "What happened here?"

"There's a hole. We have to go back."

"A what," Amy asked. "A hole?"

"Are you stupid?" Mandy eyed her. "There's a hole in the road. We can't go that way. There's a travel pipe down by the airlocks, if you've got stamps. What are you doing?"

Rey stepped closer, considering the blockade. There were no signs to keep out or to watch your step, and no signs to show any repairs. The barrier itself was rather excessive, and in her experience, excessive meant someone was desperate to hide something.

Amy was right beside her, gazing curiously. "Oh, don't mind me. Never could resist a 'keep out' sign. What's through there? What's so scary about a hole? Something under the road?"

Both girls got on the floor, trying to peak underneath.

"Nobody knows," Mandy said nervously. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

"About below," Rey asked. Below was where the engines where. Or should have been. If there was something wrong with them it made sense for the people to be forbidden to talk about it. "Do you always don't do things you aren't supposed to do?" Oh, that question came out strangely. Rey blamed the headache still pounding away at the top of her skull. She busied herself with picking the lock keeping them out.

"You know how to pick locks," Amy asked, sounding surprised.

"So do you," Rey stated factually. In fact, Amy was rather good at it.

"You sound Scottish," Mandy said suddenly, referring to Amy's accent.

"I am Scottish. What's wrong with that? Scotland's got to be here somewhere."

"No, they wanted their own ship."

How very Scottish. "Hmm, good for them," Amy mused. "Nothing changes."

"So… how did you two get here?"

"Oh, just passing through, you know, with a guy," Amy said casually.

"Your boyfriend? Hers?"

Amy suddenly startled in realization. "Oh. It's just… I'm getting married. Funny how things slip your mind."

"Married," Mandy echoed dubiously.

"Yeah, shut up, married. Really, actually married. Almost definitely."

"When?"

"Well, it's kind of weird. A long time ago, tomorrow morning. I wonder what I did."

That didn't sound very confident. It was strange to think of her and Rory not being sure of one another. They had their problems and fights, sure, but it was always to clear how much they loved each other.

Then again, Amy did tell her once about her cold feet. It was like the Doctor's strange obsession with fish fingers and custard—from the outside you might think the two had nothing to do with one another, but when they were together you realized what an excellent combination they made. The Ponds were far from perfect, but they were great together and for each other.

She wished that she could assure Amy everything would be alright. but spoilers. Instead, she held open the gate she had long since unlocked and asked "Coming," to both girls.

"No," Mandy insisted.

"Suit yourself," Amy shrugged, and marched right in.

"Stop," Mandy called after them, voice full of fear. "You mustn't do that!"

It was nearly completely dark inside the covering except for the flashing red emergency lights which actually made it harder to see. Luckily, someone had left a torch on top of a pile a broken concrete. Amy grabbed it and turned it on, almost immediately dropping it again in shock when they saw what was with them. Coming out of the hole in the ground were tendrils belonging to a much bigger body. They swayed slowly, reaching up but not attacking.

Rather than hostile, they made Rey feel incredibly strange. It was like she'd put together a puzzle only to find that the five that were missing made up nearly the entirely of the picture and everything else was just hints. Something was very wrong with this place, something that went beyond it simply being a police state.

"Oh my God," Amy gasped beside her. "That's weird. That's…" She didn't get a chance to finish. Whatever the tendrils where or whoever they belonged to had heard her. The beak or stinger or pointer—whatever it was—of one lashed out at her. She shouted and scrambled back out of the tent.

"Amy—" Rey moved to check up on her, but another tendril brushed against her arm before she had even fully turned. It didn't hurt; it didn't strike out or attack her like it had Amy. It just brushed against her like it was letting her know it was there.

Like it was letting her know she wasn't alone. Not a crying kid that everyone ignored anymore.

Someone grabbed her arm. Instinctively, Rey fought back, kicking and struggling to no avail. She was yanked out of the covering by cloaked figures. Amy was slung over the shoulder of one, already unconscious. Mandy was nowhere to be seen.

One of them sprayed something in her face. She held her breath by reflex, but whatever sedative it was, it apparently didn't need to be inhaled. The drowsiness set in almost instantly, making her actions sluggish and limbs heavy. She tried to hold on for as long as she could, but with another spray she was out like a light.

Some indeterminate time later, she woke up in a chair, alone and locked in a booth of some sort with four monitors set up in front of her. The console had just three buttons, "Protest," "Record," or "Forget." A Smiler was with them, its namesake plastered on its mask of a face. She weighed her options, debating the likelihood of her getting out if she fought. Eventually, she relaxed a little when she caught sight of a familiar drawing etched beneath the far left button.

"Welcome to voting cubicle 444C. Please leave this installation as you would wish to find it. The United Kingdom recognizes the right to know all of its citizens. A presentation concerning the history of Starship UK will begin shortly. Your identity is being verified on our electoral roll." All four screens went red. "Error. Identity unconfirmed. Identity unconfir—"

The Smiler did something, and the screens went back to normal. One of them displayed her name, age, and marital status as unknown. At least they hadn't used her actual full name.

"You are here because you want to know the truth about this starship, and I am talking to you because you're entitled to know." A woman's voice was narrating while images flashed to show the history of the Earth and decisions leading up to the human race leaving it.

"When this presentation has finished, you will have a choice. You may either protest… or forget. If you choose to protest, understand this. If just 1% of the population of this ship do likewise, the programme will be discontinue, with consequences for you all. If you choose to accept the situation—and we hope that you will—then press the 'forget' button. All the information I am about to give you will be erased from your memory. You will continue to enjoy the safety and amenities of Starship UK, unburdened by the knowledge of what has been done to save you. Here, then is the truth about Starship UK, and the price that has been paid for the safety of the British people. May God have mercy on our souls."

The images on the screen flashed rapidly, one after another. Horror, disgust, hopelessness, and sorrow all warred inside her. A storm raged in her head, and something like resignation bubbled in her chest. This was terrible. It was necessary. It was unforgivable. It was…

Her hand slammed on the "Protest" button. There was a flash of white light and suddenly, there was a gaping black hole in the place of her memory of the last few minutes. Her mind rebelled against it; she was so used to always remembering things that this felt _wrong_. What was she missing? Was it important? It had have been important for her to have been forced to forget.

The floor gave out from under her, and a tunnel of black swallowed her up. It was the worst ride she'd ever been on, like a long slide that never ended. Twisting and turning and looping back and forth. Nausea built up inside her. If it wasn't over soon, she was going to be sick.

The further down she went, the worse the smell was. Finally, her hands found purchase on something, arms nearly ripping from their sockets as she grabbed hold to stop herself from falling. It was a bar, the last rung on a ladder of sorts that didn't just go up in another tunnel, but also sideways and, possibly, upside-down at one point. Gravity was the enemy, and her limbs were still sluggish from whatever drug they'd given her.

And as the icing on the cake, the hatch she hit at the top—banging her head hard enough that, if she hadn't already had a migraine she certainly would have one now—was so. Damned. Heavy. Rey all but collapsed on the floor when she finally made it out, limbs shaking and refusing to cooperate.

She allowed herself some resting time, but not too long in case someone had noticed she wasn't where she should be. The outside of the hatch was labeled "Maintenance" in big blocky letters. At least it wasn't the rubbish pile. Two doors gave her two options: the one at the front which probably led back out to the main corridor, or the unmarked on at the side that probably led further into wherever restricted area they'd thrown her in?

The side door it was.

It opened easily into a room that was much smaller. Unlike the one she'd just left, this one didn't have a hatch at the back. Instead there was the exposed end of an overspill pipe, strategically pointed downward at the ground. The smell in here was worse than the tunnel she'd been plummeting down. Rot and vomit mixed together like the worst chemistry experiment in the history of mankind. Her jaw clenched shut—as bad as the smell was, the last thing she wanted was to taste any of it in her mouth.

Screaming signaled someone's arrival. Two someones, actually. The Doctor and Amy came shooting out of the overspill pipe, along with more vomit and half-digested foodstuff. "Rey!" She took a step back as the Doctor, face conveying sheer relief, made to approach her.

"Oh," he said, remembering where he just was. "Right. Later then?" He turned to check on Amy quickly before examining the front door. "There's nothing broken, there's no sign of concussion and yes, you are covered in sick."

"Where are we? And how did you get here?" She aimed the last question at Rey.

"Maintenance tunnel. And you just came from the overspill pipe."

"Lucky you," she said, giving Rey a wry look. "Oh, God, it stinks."

"That's not the pipe," the Doctor pointed out.

"Oh." Amy sniffed herself and immediately made a face. "Whoo! Can we get out?"

"Two doors, both with the same door switch, one condition. We forget everything we saw. Look familiar? That's the carrot." The lights flashed brighter revealing two Smilers. "Ooh, here's the stick."

The Doctor wasn't angry, not yet, but he was very upset. Rey figured that Amy must have hit the "forget" button. She must have said something or recorded some kind of message beforehand for the Doctor, telling him they had to leave or that they never should have come. He always hated it when people made decisions for him, even though he tended to do the same for everyone else.

"There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing here," he asked the Smilers. In response, their heads swiveled around to show an angry mask. "No, that's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works? That's what you did to Rey." The faces spun again, this time showing a more intense anger. "Oh, stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting and what are you fellows going to do about it? Stick out your tongues?"

The booths that had been at the two sides of the room opened to allow the two Smilers to walk out. They advanced on the three of them menacingly. "Doctor," Amy asked nervously.

A woman sudden appeared from behind them and shot at the Smilers. She made a show of twirling her pistol around her fingers before re-holstering it. "Look who it is," the Doctor said. "You look a lot better without your mask."

"You must be Amy and Rey. Liz. Liz 10."

"Hi."

"Hello."

Somehow, Liz knew better than to offer Rey a handshake. Or maybe she just regretted giving one to Amy since it left traces of sick on her skin. "Lovely hair, Amy. Shame about the sick. And Rey, your eyes are lovely. Love the gold glow."

Gold what? Her head snapped to the side to look at the Doctor. He'd never said anything about her eyes, and they definitely did not have gold in them the last time she checked. Which, admittedly, must have been some time ago. She didn't pay much attention to herself when she looked in the mirror, just enough to make sure she looked relatively normal.

He was distinctly not looking at her, but there was a contrite slump to his shoulders.

"You know Mandy, yeah," Liz continued, not noticing or caring about their interaction. The door opened for her from the outside, revealing the girl in question. "She's very brave."

"How did you find us," the Doctor asked.

"Stuck my gizmo on you." She threw the receiver at him. "Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape. So, what's the big fella doing here?"

He regarded her tensely. "You're over 16, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it."

"No," Liz denied. "Never forgot, never voted. Not technically a British subject."

"Then who and what are you, and how do you know us?" He inched closer to Rey, standing protectively in front of her.

To her credit, all Liz looked was amused. "You're a bit hard to miss, loves. Mysterious strangers, MO consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot…" The Doctor opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut, running a hand through his messy hair. "I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was."

"Your family?"

One of the Smilers began to move again. "They're repairing," Liz noted. "Doesn't take them long. Let's move." She led them out of the overspill pipe room and through the corridors of the lower levels. "The Doctor and his Rey. Old drinking buddies of Henry XII. Tea and scones with Liz II. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you two, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day. And don't get me started with the Virgin Queen, you bad, bad boy!"

"Liz 10?"

"Elizabeth the Tenth," Rey concluded. That explained the not technically a citizen part.

"Yeah. And down!" The current British monarch spun around and fired both her pistols simultaneously at the two Smilers attempting to creep up on them. "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule." She led them down another series of corridors until they came to the base of an elevator shaft. Next to it was a caged off area like the one Rey and Amy had been investigating when they were attacked. "Oh, yeah. There's these things. Any ideas?"

"Doctor, I saw one of these up top," Amy said. "There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through, like a root."

"Exactly like a root," he said, then frowned when Rey shook her head. "No? Not like a root? What did you see?"

"Like an arm," she said softly. You dug with your hands, after all. And the tendrils, whatever they were, were like arms reaching up and out.

"It's all one creature," he continued, mulling her words over in his head. "The same one Amy and I were inside—the same one they tried to throw you inside of. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship."

"What? Like an infestation," Liz asked.

"Someone's helping it," the Doctor said instead of answering. "Feeding it."

"Feeding my subjects to it. Come on. We've got to keep moving." She marched away in a determined huff, Mandy trailing at her heels.

"Doctor," Amy asked uncertainly. "Rey?"

The tendrils banged against the bars loudly. "We should have never come here," he said.

Rey stayed silent.

Liz's rooms were large and truly fit for someone of her status. About three dozen glasses of water were on the floor, spread out like a maze that couldn't be avoided. The Doctor and Amy quickly washed up, though the smell of the sick seemed to cling to them still. Rey was curled in sideways on an armchair. She leaned her head against the soft cushion of the back, wishing her brain would stop hurting.

"Why all the glasses," the Doctor asked.

Liz was pretending to lounge on her bed. "To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what."

He picked up the mask she had set beside her. "A queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?"

"Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this—my entire reign—" Rey noted the way the Doctor's lips twitched at that. Not ten years, then— "And you've achieved more in one afternoon."

"How old were you when you ascended the throne," Rey asked.

"40. Why?"

"What, you're 50 now," Amy asked incredulously. She and Mandy sat on the chaise at the foot of Liz's bed. "No way!"

"Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps."

The Doctor got up from the bed and began pacing behind Rey's seat. He still held the mask in his hands. Then, he stopped and turned back to the queen. "And you always wear this in public?"

"Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting."

"Air-balanced porcelain," he explained, and suddenly Rey understood his unease. "Stays on by itself, 'cos it's perfectly sculpted to your face."

"Yeah. So what?"

"It's the key to figuring it all out," Rey said.

Suddenly the door burst open and four cloaked men filed into the room. "What are you doing here," Liz asked, outraged. "How dare you come in here?"

"Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Starship UK," one of them said. "You will come with us now."

"Why would I do that?" The man's head spun, just like the Smilers' had. And angry face stared back. Liz was certainly taken aback, staring incomprehensibly. "How can they be Smilers?"

"Half-Smiler," the Doctor corrected. "Half-human."

"Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?"

"The highest authority, Ma'am," the Human Smiler replied.

"I _am_ the highest authority."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "You must go now, Ma'am."

"Where?"

"The Tower, Ma'am."

In hindsight, Rey supposed it should have been obvious that the Tower of London, or whatever equivalent they'd made of it, be the base of operations. Once she realized it, everything came clicking in place. She found that she disagreed with the Doctor's earlier sentiment. It wasn't that they shouldn't have come here, it was that they should have come earlier.

The room was medieval in design, but outfitted with 29th Century-grade machines. At one end was a grating through which more of the beast could be seen. "Doctor, where are we," Amy asked.

He'd figured it out too. Rey didn't even have to look at his face to tell. One of his hands held hers, and that grip was currently the only soft thing about him. She could feel him trembling, even through the glove. "The lowest point of Starship UK. The dungeon."

"Ma'am," a grey haired man greeted.

"Hawthorne! So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do."

"Why are there children down here," Rey asked. Separated by a chain fence, the kids were kept to the sides and put to work. They were all pale and filthy, obviously not taken well care of.

"Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast," Hawthorne replied without any feeling. "For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared." He paused for a second. "Are you an adult?"

"I'm 19."

"You're very lucky."

"Yeah, look at us," the Doctor said bitterly. "Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Except it's not a torture chamber, is it?" He examined the equipment quickly, growing angrier the longer he looked at it. "Well, except it is. Except it isn't. Depends on your angle."

They joined Liz by the open portion of the floor. Someone had cut a circle in the floor and built a railing around it. Heavy machinery hung from above, supporting a laser that would strike down every so often. "What's that," Liz asked.

"Well, like I say, depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly…"

"Or?"

"Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator—Starship UK's go-faster button."

"I don't understand," Liz said.

"Don't you," he asked hotly. "Try, go on. The spaceship that could never fly, no vibration on deck. This creature—this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading—it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving." As if to prove his point, the laser picked then to beam down, shooting an electrical current into the beast's brain. "Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear."

He moved to another section and lifted the grating off the floor. The same tendrils they'd seen throughout the ship extended upwards into the free space, reach out. Then, the Doctor pulled out the sonic and a terrible cry called out. Rey squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like a vice had been clamped around her chest.

"Stop it," Liz begged. Then she turned to Hawthorne. "Who did this?"

"We act on instructions from the highest authority," he said cryptically.

"I am the highest authority. The creature will be released. Now. I said now!" No one in the room moved. "Is anyone listening to me?"

"Your mask," Rey said weakly.

She blinked, caught off guard by the apparent sudden change in topic. "What about my mask?"

"It's old. An antique."

"Yeah, so?"

"An antique made by craftsmen over 200 years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face," the Doctor spelled out for her. "They slowed your body clock, alright, but you're not 50. Nearer 300. And it's been a long reign."

She shook her head and insisted, "Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years."

"Ten years," he agreed. "And the same ten years over and over again, always leading you… here." There was a voting stand near the controls. The one only had two choices, to "forget," or to "abdicate."

"What have you done," she asked Hawthorne with a voice full of dread.

"Only what you have ordered. We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us."

He turned on the recording and Liz, younger but with the same exact face, spoke to her older self. "If you are watching this… if I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travelers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart."

All of them—the Doctor, Rey, Amy, Mandy, and even Hawthorne—listened in silence as Liz relayed the tale. "The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us, and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the 'forget' button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope you keep the strength to make the right decision."

"I voted for this," Amy asked. She looked to the Doctor. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know," he told her intently.

"I don't even remember doing it," she protested.

"You did it. That's what counts."

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"Oh, I don't care," he told her. "When I'm done here, you're going home."

"Why," she asked his retreated back as he walked back over to the controls. "Because I made a mistake? One mistake? I don't even remember doing it. Doctor!"

"Yeah. I know. You're only human."

"What are you doing," Liz asked as he examined the instruments.

"The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it."

"That'll be like killing it," Amy said.

Finally, he spun around to look at her. "Look, three options. One: I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two: I kill everyone on this ship. Three: I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, 'cos I won't be the Doctor anymore."

"There must be something we can do," Liz urged. "Some other way."

"Nobody talk to me," he said. "Nobody human has anything to say to me today!" And then he effectively turned his blinders up and concentrated on Option Three.

Helplessly, Amy and Mandy sat against the wall, unable to do anything by watch. Rey was back over at the grating the Doctor had lifted earlier. The Star Whale's feelers were still reaching out of it, that first one joined by a few more. It brushed against her arms, reminding her of earlier when she and Amy had trespassed. Across the room, Mandy spotted her friend as one of the child workers. She watched as the feelers played with her, allowing her to pet it.

"There's an option four," she said out loud, clearly projecting so the Doctor could hear her. "Isn't there, Amy?" She looked at the Doctor, then from Liz to the booth.

"What? Yes! Doctor, stop," she shouted, jumping to her feet. "Whatever you're doing, stop it now! Sorry, your majesty, going to need a hand." Before anyone could stop her, Amy grabbed Liz ten, led her to the voting stall, and slammed her hand on the "abdicate" button.

"Amy, no! No!" the Doctor ran over, but it was too late. The whale let out a loud bellow that must have echoed throughout the entire vessel. Starship UK shuddered and shook accordingly as the holds keeping the Star Whale in place released it. "Amy, what have you done?"

"Nothing at all. Am I right?"

"If you notice, we're actually going faster now," Rey said.

"Yeah, well, they've stopped torturing the pilot. Gotta help."

"It's still here," Liz asked. I don't understand."

Rey came up to the Doctor, holding offering him her hand. He looked at her curiously, all the questions running around his head evident on his face. "You saw something."

"I did," she confirmed. "Amy listened too." She nodded to her, allowing her to explain it. It was her right, since she'd also figured it out.

Amy was so full of adrenaline and confidence she was practically shaking with it. "The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it—that was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry." She turned to the Doctor. "What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead, no future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind… you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry."

At very last, he got it. Suddenly, all the tension left the Doctor's body, and the force of his relief left tears in his eyes. They walked up slowly to the observation deck after they were released, taking some time to just look out at the stars. Amy was a little further down, looking very satisfied and proud of herself. As she should. Rey and the Doctor hung back a little, watching her as much as the scenery.

"Don't send her back," Rey urged quietly. "She did a lot of good today, and I know you've already warmed up to her."

"She could have almost killed everyone on board," he protested.

"She figured it out before you."

"So did you."

Rey sighed. They were talking about Amy, not her. "What if I wasn't there?" Donna had told her what happened with the Doctor and the Racnoss after she jumped. It terrified her to think what would happen if no one was they to stop the Doctor when he was on the edge, or to urge him to reconsider when he was too angry to think clearly. "Give Amy a chance. She deserves that much at least."

As if copying her, the Doctor also heaved a sigh. Then he smiled, and squeezed her hand gently. The tips of warm fingers slipped under the helm of her sleeve, tickling her skin. And that was how they walked back to the TARDIS, together.

* * *

**So 2020 is a landfill on fire while a hurricane rages on around it, but one good thing happened: I got a cat! Been wanting one my entire life and it finally happened. He's so friendly and just a little bit of a bastard, especially to my sister's dog who is three times his size and picks fights with dogs five times **_her_** size, so you can imagine the chaos in trying to moderate between them. I've also never taken care of a cat before, so if anyone has tips, please.**


	8. The Empty Child

"What's the emergency," Rose asked as the Doctor and Rey rushed around the console. Typically, the TARDIS was shaking and shuddering and making all sorts of noises it probably shouldn't.

"It's mauve," the Doctor replied, gesturing at her to hold down the lever.

"Mauve?"

"The universally recognized colour for danger," Rey explained, zigzagging the knob on the zig-zag plotter with one hand, and inputting a sequence of binary into some buttons with the other.

"What happened to red?"

"That's just humans," the Doctor said dismissively. "By everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing." He pointed to the object on the monitor they were following. "It's got a very basic flight computer—I've hacked in, slaved the TARDIS. Where it goes, we go."

"And how safe is it?"

"Totally."

Some part of the console between Rey and Rose exploded.

"Reasonably," Rey amended.

"Okay, reasonably," he agreed. "Should have said reasonably there." He was soon distracted by some more beeping. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks—getting away from us."

"What exactly is this thing," Rose asked.

"No idea," Rey told her.

"And why are we chasing it?"

Like she even had to ask. "It's mauve and dangerous. And about 30 seconds from the centre of London," he said, and suddenly they were spinning.

She clutched onto the console for dear life. Rose wasn't quick enough and ended up slipping onto her backside. The Doctor looked the least perturbed, managing to still dash around the controls. Finally, everything stopped as they landed behind some dreary houses in the middle of the night.

"Do you know how long we can knock around space without having to bump into Earth," the Doctor asked as he shut the TARDIS doors behind him.

"Five days," Rose guessed. "Or is that just when we're out of milk?"

"Of all the species in the universe and it has to come out of a cow."

"There's always soy," Rey offered. "Or various other non-dairy based alternatives." She herself was lactose-intolerant and could barely stand it.

He looked around. "Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month."

"A month," Rose repeated. "We were right behind it!"

"It was jumping time tracks like they were rope, we're bound to be a little off," Rey said.

"Yeah… how much is 'a little,'" she asked, affronted.

"A bit," the Doctor said vaguely.

"Is that _exactly_ a bit," Rose teased, which didn't make much sense to Rey at first since 'little' and 'a bit' were both relative terms until she realized that Rose wasn't actually serious.

"Ish," the Doctor replied.

"What's the plan, then? Are you gonna do a scan for alien tech or something?"

"Rose, it hit the middle of London with a very loud bang. I'm gonna ask."

He held up the psychic paper for her to read. "Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids and Associate, L. M. Rey." Rey's lips twitched down at the suggestion of her full name. Rose eyed her carefully, suspiciously, then decided not to say anything about it. "Not very Spock, is it? Just asking?"

They walked down an alley that ended in a set of double doors that refused to open. "Door— Music— People. What d'you think," he asked Rey.

"I think you should do a scan for alien tech," Rose said.

"Shall I pick the lock," she asked. He shrugged and moved aside for her.

"Gimme some Spock," Rose complained. "For once, would it kill ya?"

In response the Doctor eyed her blouse. "Are you sure about that t-shirt?"

It was rather garish with the Union Jack emblazoned on the front, bright colours almost glowing even in the dim lighting. "Too early to say. I'm taking it for a spin."

Rey felt the final pin give and the door clicked open. "Come on if you're coming," the Doctor said without looking back at Rose. "Won't take a second."

They entered a club of sorts, or maybe a pub, thick with the smell of tobacco. The music got louder the further in they were, accompanied by laughter and chatter. A woman sang on stage, sultry voice crooning out the last verse of a love song.

The Doctor joined in on the audience's applause as she finished, taking her place on the stage. "Excuse me! Excuse me! Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick, eh… hello! Eh… might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?"

Utter silence met the question before the crowd burst out into laughter. Rey took in the clothes, the style of the song that was just sang, and the complete lack of regard for first- and secondhand smoke. At first she'd just assumed they'd entered one of those themed clubs—that was a thing, wasn't it?—but it was shaping up to be a misunderstanding of unfortunate proportions.

"Sorry, have I said something funny," the Doctor asked, and the laughing intensified. "It's just, there's this thing I need to find, would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago."

The warning siren sounded—a whining shrill of a noise. Instantly, the audience gathered their things and evacuated the room in an orderly, practiced manner with little panic but much tension.

"Would've landed quite near here," the Doctor continued, still not getting it. "With a very loud…"

With a lack of bodies blocking the way, he could finally make out the poster on the wall with "HITLER WILL SEND NO WARNING" printed in large block letters.

"…Bang."

Realizing what the siren meant, they rushed back outside to find Rose. She wasn't waiting by the doors where they left her, nor was she around the corner by the TARDIS. Almost comically, a black cat was sitting on the cover of a nearby dustbin, meowing unhelpfully as they called to Rose.

The Doctor picked it up, cradling it in his arms. "You know… one day. Just one day, maybe… I'm gonna meet someone who gets the whole 'don't wander off' thing." Rey cleared her throat. "Oh, let's be honest, you only do so half the time anyway."

She nodded since that was fair. Rey didn't often go looking for trouble, or if she did she tried not to go alone. Or alone without telling anyone or leaving some kind of note.

The exterior TARDIS phone started ringing, startling both of them. Brow pinched in confusion, the Doctor set the cat down to walk over to the time machine. It meowed again, rubbed playfully against Rey's leg, then wandered off.

"How can you be ringing," he asked the phone stashed in the hidden compartment behind the left hand sign. "What's that about? Ringing? What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?"

Rey shrugged. She'd never made or answered a phone call before meeting the Doctor. Sometime in the future he would patch the line through the console to actually take calls, but she imagined that it had been disconnected for a while now.

"Don't answer it," a girl in braids said. Nancy had crept up on them so silently, Rey almost didn't notice her. "It's not for either of you."

"How do you know," Rey asked her.

"'Cos I do. And I'm tellin' ya—don't answer it."

"Well, if you know so much, tell me—how can it be ringing," the Doctor asked. "It's not even a real phone. It's not _connected_, it's not—" Nancy paid him no mind. Having said her piece, she ran off again nearly as quietly as she's come.

"You're going to pick it up," Rey said with a mix of curiosity and dread pooling in her gut. Currently curiosity was winning out, but the dread caught her off guard.

The Doctor nodded, hand hesitating over the phone for a second before picking it up and holding it between them so they could both listen. "Hello," he called into the microphone. Only faint crackling could be heard from the other end. "This is the Doctor speaking. How may I help you?"

"Mummy?" His slight grin faded at the sound of the voice. Rey tensed, sensing a lot of panic and running in the near future. An alien on the other end they would have been able to write off—there was loads of alien tech out there that could force a connection with any receiver. But this sounded like a human child.

"Mummy?"

"Who is this," he asked, growing serious. "Who's speaking?"

"Are you my mummy?"

"Who is this?"

"Mummy," the child, most likely a boy, asked again.

"How did you _ring_ here," the Doctor demanded to know. "This isn't a real phone, it's not wired up to anything, it's—"

"Mummy?" Then the line clicked and went dead. Slowly, the Doctor hung the phone back on the cradle. A crashing noise came from behind them. He exchanged a look with Rey and in unison they turned to run to the source.

It had come from someone's garden, the sound of the door being slammed shut. The wife was urging her husband to the shelter while he took his sweet time, complaining about how to bombings always seemed to start in the middle of dinnertime.

"Don't you eat," he hollered at the sky, over the sound of distant planes incoming.

"Oh, keep your voice down, will ya," the wife scolded. She pushed him into the shelter first, then followed him.

Once they were safely inside the shelter with the door closed, Nancy tiptoed out from behind it and made her way through the unlocked back door into the house. She seemed to know her way around well enough, stealing tins from the cupboard and a few other things around the house she'd deemed useful.

She was back outside a few minutes later, whistling as if signaling, then went back inside. Quickly and rather silently, children, sometimes one by one, sometimes in twos or threes, ran into the house. Rey and the Doctor snuck in last. He took a seat at the table with the kids while she stayed on her feet behind him. As long as they stayed quiet, it looked like they could go unnoticed.

"It's got to be black market," one of the boys, Ernie, said as Nancy cut the meat. A full course was laid out on the table, more than enough for everyone seated and the couple who it all actually belonged to. "He couldn't get all this on coupons."

"Ernie—how many times," Nancy reprimanded. "We are guests in this house. We will not make comments of that kind. Washing up."

"Oh, Nancy," Ernie complained as the others laughed at his expense.

"Haven't seen you at one of these before," she noted to another boy. It was clear she was somewhat in charge of this motley group. Not a leader, but someone they all respected and relied on.

"He told me about it." Alf nodded to the boy across from him.

"Sleeping rough?"

"Yes, miss."

"Alright then." Done with her preparations, Nancy passed the plate of meat around. "One slice each, and I want to see everyone chewing properly."

"Thank ya, miss!"

"Thanks, miss!"

"Thank you miss."

"Thanks, miss," the Doctor said with a wide grin, surprising everyone.

Immediately, the children all gasped and made to leave their seats. "It's alright," Nancy told them, gesturing to sit back down. "Everybody stay where you are!" One of the kids was staring at the Doctor and Rey with a piece of meat still handing out of his mouth.

"Good here, innit," the Doctor asked. "Who's got the salt?"

"Back in your seats," Nancy ordered. "He shouldn't be here either."

The Doctor grinned up at Rey. She shared with him her version of a smile—the slightest uptick of the corners of her lips, lasting for all of two seconds. Granted, it was much more than she had been able to muster before meeting him.

Satisfied, he turned back and helped himself to some more sauce. "So, you lot… what's the story?"

"What d'you mean," Ernie asked as they all settled back in.

"You're homeless, right? Living rough?"

"Why d'you wanna know that? Are you a copper?"

"Of course I'm not a copper. What's a copper gonna do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving?" The children laughed, finally relaxing again.

"It's 1941," she glanced at the Doctor, who nodded, for confirmation. "They should have evacuated all the children to the country by now."

"I was evacuated," Alf said. "They sent me to a farm."

"So why'd you come back," the Doctor asked.

"There was a man there…"

"Yeah, same with Ernie," Jim added. "Two homes ago."

"Shut up. It's better on the streets anyway," Ernie said. "Better food."

"Yeah. Nancy always gets the best food for us."

The Doctor smiled at her. "So, that's what you do is it, Nancy?"

"What is," she asked tersely.

"As soon as the sirens go, you find a big fat family meal, still warm on the table with everyone down in the air raid shelter and—bingo! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all! As long as the bombs don't get you."

Nancy glared at him. "Something wrong with that."

"It's brilliant," Rey said.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."

"Why'd you two follow me? What d'you want?"

"I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call," he said plainly. "You seem to be the one to ask.

"I did you a favour. I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling ya."

"Great, thanks. And I wanna find a blonde in a Union Jack. I mean a specific one, I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving." The boys all laughed. Nancy looked unimpressed. She got up out of her seat and took the Doctor's plate away, claiming he'd taken two slices of meat.

"He's actually serious," Rey told them. "We're looking for a friend."

"No blondes—no flags. Anything else before you leave?"

"Yes," she said before the Doctor could reply. "We're also looking for something that would have fallen from the sky about a month ago. Not a bomb," she added, accounting for the current norm. "It wouldn't have exploded, just buried in the ground. Cylindrical shape, like a big metal log."

The children all looked interested. Nancy looked away. She was tense, not just from annoyance, but fear. The glimpse of her face that Rey caught spoke of a deep sorrow.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the window. "Mummy? Are you in there, mummy?"

It was the same voice from the phone. The Doctor rushed to the window, pulling the curtain to the side to look through it. Standing there with a bulky gas mask covering his face was a little boy, maybe just a bit younger than most of the kids here if she was judging by height and build.

He knocked again. "Mummy?"

"Who was the last one in," Nancy urgently asked.

Ernie gestured to the Doctor and Rey. "Them."

"Nah, they came 'round the back. Who came in the front?"

"Me," Alf whispered.

"Did you close the door?"

"I…"

"Did you close the door," she repeated.

"Mummy? Mummy? Muuuum-my?"

Nancy ran through the corridor to reach the front door. The child's elongated shadow could be seen stretching through the threshold. She managed to close and bolt it in time, backing away from it as if she were certain the child would phase through the wood.

"What's this, then," the Doctor asked. "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know."

"I suppose you'd know," Nancy said.

"I do actually, yes. We both do." He took Rey's hand, squeezing lightly once before letting go.

"It's not exactly a child," Nancy said cryptically.

"Muuum-my?"

Clearly upset, but doing a champion's job at hiding it, Nancy pushed past the Doctor to get back to the dining room. The kids were still sitting at the table, listening dutifully as she addressed them. "Right, everybody out, across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!"

In one second they went from stillness to movement, abandoning the house nearly as quick as they'd come. Nancy shrugged her coat on, encouraging the one remaining girl to run. "Come on, baby. You've got to go. Okay? It's just like a game. Just like chasing. Take your coat, go on." She was very good at what she did, inputting just the right amount of sternness and care. With her gone, only three people were left in the house.

"Mummy? Please let me in, mummy." The little boy stuck his hand through the letterbox, reaching for something. A scar marred the back of his hand. "Please let me in, mummy."

"Are you alright?" The Doctor stepped towards the door.

Rey stopped him with a hand placed lightly on his arm. Something was bothering her. It was like there was a big blind spot in her vision. She could see the boy's hand and hear his voice, but it was like she also couldn't. There was something missing; she couldn't gleam anything from him. Even corpses had stories to tell, but him…

"Please let me in."

Nancy threw something against the door. It smashed loudly and the child pulled back his arm. "You musn't let him touch ya!"

"What happens if he touches us," Rey asked her.

"He'll make you like him," she said fearfully.

"And what's he like," the Doctor asked.

Nancy shook her head and took a few steps back. "I've gotta go."

"Nancy, what's he like?"

"He's empty."

The phone started ringing.

"It's him," Nancy said, still terrified. Maybe even more so now that she was finally saying all this out loud. "He can make phones ring, he can. Just like with that police box you saw."

The Doctor looked back at the child's shadow, still stretching through the floor, and picked up the phone. "Are you my mummy?"

Before he could reply, Nancy ripped it out of his hands and slammed it back down. Then the radio clicked on by itself. There was a few short seconds of music before it crackled and, like with the impossible phones, the child's voice called out of it. "Mummy? Please let me in, mummy."

Rey tried the turner, seeing if she could change the broadcast. A toy monkey in the corner was suddenly moving, crashing its symbols together as the child asked, through the speaker in its mouth, "Mummy? Muuum-my, muum-my…"

The Doctor picked it up to examine it. "Stay if you want to," Nancy told them, full of fear and regret before she turned and fled.

"Mummy, mummy, mummy…" The letterbox flipped open again as the child stuck his hand through it. "Mummy? Let me in please, mummy…"

The Doctor kneeled in front of the door, looking rather concerned at the scarred hand. Rey stood a few steps away, more afraid than she'd been in a while. She couldn't help it, even just listening to the child was like having someone scream that something was wrong to her.

"_Please_ let me in."

"Your mummy isn't here," he said, standing up and walking over to her. He offered a sympathetic look, promising silently that it would be over soon.

"Are you my mummy," the child asked after a pause.

"No mummies here. None be here but us chickens."

"I'm scared." It didn't sound scared. It didn't sound like anything.

"Why are those other children frightened of you?"

Instead of answering, the child just pleaded again, "Please let me in, mummy. I'm scared of the bombs."

They waited a minute. Two. The child withdrew his hand. Another minute later the Doctor peered out the eyehole. Then he unbolted the door and opened it. Rey's breath caught in her throat, but the front yard and the street outside were both abandoned. Not a child in sight, empty of not.

"You okay," he asked.

She nodded, pulling back her hair to tie it up. It was difficult to convey to him exactly what it was that unsettled her. A lack of tone and inflection, an unreadable body language, a scar that made no sense—those didn't even come close to explaining why every sense that she took the child in with simultaneously refused to recognize him.

The Doctor frowned, curiosity morphing into concern. "Do you want to leave? We can forget about the distress signal, find Rose, and just leave."

And he would, if she said yes. The Doctor would abandon his curiosity, and off they'd go, onto the next adventure. Rey could put the empty boy out of her head and that would be that.

As much as she wanted to say yes, she ended up shaking her head instead. She wanted to know. Still, no matter how frightened or deterred she felt, she wanted the truth. There could never be too many facts. It was always better to know. "We should find Nancy."

Nancy had scurried out to the outer edge of the city, a place where train tracks crossed and houses were scarce. There was a building in the distance, probably an old maintenance shed or a barrack station for train workers. She was in such a hurry to hide away her stash that she didn't notice the Doctor and Rey watching her from the doorway until she looked up. "How'd you follow me here," she demanded.

"We're good at following. Rey's got some spectacular eyes and me—got the nose for it."

She eyed them suspiciously. "People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to."

"My nose has special powers," the Doctor joked.

"Yeah? That's why it's uh…"

"What?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. Rey hid a smile.

"What?"

"Nothing! Do your ears have special powers too?"

"What're you trying to say?"

"They are rather large," Rey teased with a straight face.

"Goodnight, Mister. Miss." Nancy turned away from them, wanting to be done with the conversation.

"Nancy. There's something chasing you and the other kids. Looks like a boy and isn't a boy, and it started about a month ago, right?" Reluctantly, Nancy turned back to look at them. "The thing we're looking for. The thing that fell from the sky, that's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"There was a bomb," she said fearfully. "A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."

"Take us there," Rey asked, but Nancy adamantly shook her head.

"There's soldiers guarding it, barbed wire… you'll never get through."

"We followed you," she pointed out, "and you thought that was impossible."

"You sure you wanna know what's going on in there?"

"We really wanna know," the Doctor said.

"Then there's someone you need to talk to first."

"And who might that be?"

"The doctor," she said plainly.

Rey and the Doctor exchanged looks. She didn't think that the other girl was referring to him, probably just a normal doctor. He let out an ironic chuckle but readily agreed to Nancy's stipulation.

Just as Nancy said, the crash site was being heavily guarded. They observed from some distance away, the Doctor looking through a pair of binoculars to examine the details. "The bomb's under that tarpaulin." Nancy pointed to the bulky green covering at the center of the site. "They put the fence up over night. See that building? The hospital."

"Is that where the doctor is?" Rey consulted her mental map. The terrain was completely different, but the building was in the same place as Albion Hospital—the one the pig the Slitheen family had modified was taken to. Maybe that's why it was chosen—there was a precedent for strangeness.

"You should talk to him," Nancy said.

"For now, I'm more interested in getting in there." The Doctor pointed back to the bomb site.

"Talk to the doctor first," Nancy insisted.

"Why?"

"'Cos then maybe you won't wanna get inside." Then, having held up her end of the bargain, she started down the steps to leave.

"Where're you going," the Doctor asked without looking away from his binoculars.

"There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe now."

"The raid is almost over," Rey noted. "Be careful not to get caught."

"Can I ask you a question?" Without waiting for her approval, the Doctor continued. "Who did you lose?"

"What?"

"The way you look after those kids," he explained, finally looked at her. "It's cos you lost somebody, isn't it. You're doing all this to make up for it."

Nancy stiffened. Curiously, the same mix of fear and grief was back on her face. She stayed quiet for a moment, long enough that Rey thought she wouldn't respond. Then admitted, "My little brother. Jamie. One night I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me—told him it was dangerous, but he just… he just didn't like being on his own."

"What happened?"

"In the middle of an air raid," she asked bitterly. "What do you _think_ happened?"

He nodded in understanding, then smiled. "Amazing."

"What is?"

"1941." Up above and in the near distance, the planes were still flying over the city, dropping their bombs. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder and smoke, and the sky was lit up with small explosions. "Right now, not very far from here, a German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says 'No. No. Not here.' A mouse in front of a lion."

Nancy still looked confused. "It's a compliment," Rey assured her.

"You're amazing, the lot of you. Dunno what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. Off you go then… do what you've gotta do. Save the world."

They went their separate ways. On Rey's urging—and she never thought she'd want to go back to any hospital—they did go to see Nancy's doctor first instead of going directly to the crash site. The building was deserted. The lights being off was just par for course for an air raid, but hospitals had patients that shouldn't or couldn't be moved nightly. They had staff like nurses and doctors. But the corridors were empty.

Like a coward, Rey clung to the Doctor's hand. She may have been the one to suggest coming here, but that didn't mean she liked it. That time with the excitement of first contact hanging over them, she had convinced herself that she was alright. They hadn't stayed long, and they hadn't seen much, just a few corridors, the morgue, and the inside of a supply cupboard.

This was different. The lack of lights didn't make it any easier. She expected shaking to start any second, or for them to hit a dead end where the ceiling had collapsed in on them. With every breath she inhaled phantom traces of dust and concrete.

She was glad that the Doctor didn't say anything. If he tried to comfort her, she didn't know how she would take it. Right now, all she wanted was to find Nancy's mysterious doctor and get out. Or better yet, just leave.

As they wandered further into the hospital, through some of the darkened wards, Rey's anxiety only ratcheted up even more. Row after row of bodies were lying on cots, all of them wearing gas masks like the little boy had. They might as well have been comatose or dead for how still they were. Clothing suggested that staff members and even soldiers were among them.

There was one old man, unaffected, sitting by his lonesome in another ward. This one was lit a little brighter than the others, though it was still full of the gas mask people. "You'll find them everywhere," the man told them solemnly. The white lab coat that he wore revealed his occupation and had Rey nearly hiding behind the Doctor. "Every bed in every ward. Hundreds of them."

"Yes, we saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?" The Doctor stood protectively in front of her. One hand reached back to hold hers, thumb rubbing soothing circles into her wrist.

"They're not. Why are you?"

He faltered. "I'm, uh… are you the doctor?"

"Doctor Constantine. And you are?"

"Nancy sent us."

"Nancy? That means you must've been asking about the bomb," Dr. Constantine realized. The Doctor nodded. "What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," he lied. "Why I was asking. What do you know?"

"Only what it's done."

"These people—were they all caught up in the blast?"

"None of them were." Dr. Constantine laughed bitterly. It soon transformed into a nasty, wet cough. He stumbled back into the chair behind him, breathing hard.

"You're very sick," Rey noted quietly. She didn't really want to look at him, but it was better than looking at the bodies around them. They gave her the same feeling as the little boy did—there but not there. At least with Dr. Constantine she understood her own fear.

"Dying, I should think—I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you two doctors?"

"I have my moments," the Doctor replied.

"Have you examined any of them, yet?" When the Doctor shook his head, Constantine gestured for him to go ahead. "Don't touch the flesh," he warned.

"Which one?"

"_Any_ one."

He pulled out the sonic and walked over to the nearest cot. Rey watched as he ran the tip along the mask that covered the face, brow furrowing in confusion as the scan revealed impossible results. "What is it," she asked.

"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side…" He scanned the torso. "Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh but I can't see any burns."

"Examine another one," Dr. Constantine told him. The Doctor obliged, walking over to another body and performing the same scan. Then he examined a third, growing more frenzied as he worked.

"This isn't possible!"

"No," Dr. Constantine agreed.

"They've all got the same injuries!"

"Yes."

"Exactly the same." He agreed again. "Identical, all of them. right down to the scar on the back of the hand."

"How did this happen," Rey asked. "How did it start?"

"When the bomb dropped, there was just one victim," Dr. Constantine told them.

"Dead?" All that trauma—he must have died.

"At first. His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him—who had touched him—had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward had the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries—as plague. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"

"The head trauma," the Doctor hazarded.

"No."

"Asphyxiation."

"No."

"The collapse of the chest cavity—"

"No," Dr. Constantine denied for a third time.

"Alright. What was the cause of death?"

"They're still alive," Rey realized. She looked around at all the bodies around her. Not dead and not alive. Individuals and linked. No wonder her brain was having a field day trying to decipher them.

Dr. Constantine banged his cane against a tin waste bin next to his seat. As one, all the patients suddenly sat up. The Doctor looked alarmed, backing up to stand with Rey again. "It's alright," the old man assured them. "They're harmless. They just… sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just… don't die."

"And they've just been left here," the Doctor asked. Horror and outrage was beginning to sink in. "Nobody's _doing_ anything?"

"I try and make them comfortable," Dr. Constantine said as the people all laid down again. "What else is there?"

"Are you the only one left," Rey asked.

"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I am still a doctor."

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, thinking back to his own war. "Know the feeling."

Perhaps he was simply resigned to his fate, or maybe he had no desire to live on alone, by Dr. Constantine was completely unperturbed when he told them his suspicions of the army blowing up the hospital and putting the blame on a German bomb. The Doctor thought it was too late—the injuries, disease, whatever it was called was already spreading, but the old man insisted there was still time. "They are isolated cases, but… isolated cases breaking out all over London…"

He coughed again, sounding truly dreadful. The Doctor stepped towards him, intending to help, but was pushed back. "Listen to me… top floor. Room 602, that's where they took the first victim—the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."

"Nancy?"

"It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she mi— mi—" Dr. Constantine gagged as if something were forcing its way out of his throat. "M… mu… mee… Are…you … my… mummy?"

They watched in horror as the filter of gas mask came out of his mouth. The rest of his face morphed, eyes becoming the lenses and skin becoming the connective material. He went limp in his chair, just another lifeless body.

The Doctor and Rey shared a look. Dr. Constantine had been the one to warn them not to touch the bodies. He wouldn't have been careless himself, not when he was the only one left. That meant it wasn't just spreading through physical contact anymore. A bomb would destroy the evidence, yes, but it might also aerosolize the effect, dispersing it not just throughout London, but beyond the city.

"Hello," a man called out in the distance.

"Hello," another voice, Rose's, asked after.

"Hello?"

Rey nearly called out to Jack when she saw him, before she realized that was probably where they first met. He was all smiles and charm when he greeted them, shaking the Doctor's hand right away. "Good evening. Hope I'm not interrupting—Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over."

"He knows," Rose said to the Doctor. "I had to tell him about us being Time Agents."

"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mr. Spock. Though I must say, Rose never mentioned there would be three of you."

"I'm forgettable," Rey said with a shrug. As relieved as she was to see a familiar face, she didn't want to spend extra time socializing in a hospital of all places. Jamie's room was on the eighth floor—they should take a look around and then get out as quickly as possible.

"Mr. Spock," the Doctor asked Rose, frowning a little. "You didn't mention Rey either."

"What was I supposed to say, you don't have a name! Don't you ever get tired of 'Doctor?' Doctor who? And Rey what?"

"Nine centuries in, I'm coping," he told her dismissively. "Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz, it's not a good time for a stroll."

"Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid." Rose straightened her shirt and marched off to follow Jack.

"What?!"

"Listen, what's a Chula warship?"

"Chula?"

Back inside the ward, Jack was scanning the bodies. He had come to the same conclusion the Doctor had, and had the same bewildered expression on his face. "This just isn't possible. How could this happen?"

"What kind of Chula ship landed here," the Doctor asked.

"What?"

"He said it was a warship," Rose helpfully supplied. "He stole it. Parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's gonna fall on it—unless _we_ make him an offer."

"What kind of warship," Rey asked.

"Does it matter?" Jack was getting agitated now. "It's got nothing to do with this!"

"This started at the bomb site," the Doctor angrily shot back. "It's got _everything_ to do with it. What kind of warship!"

"An ambulance! Look." He activated something on his vortex manipulator and pulled up a hologram of the ship. "That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty. I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle—love the retro look, by the way, nice panels—threw you the bait—"

"Bait," Rose echoed, a hint of anger in her voice as she realized they'd been tricked.

"He was going to sell it to us, then destroy it before we could properly inspect," Rey explained. It was a simple enough farce.

"He said it was a _war_ ship," Rose protested.

"They have ambulances in wars," Jack said, growing more frustrated. "It was a con. I was conning you—that's what I am, I'm a conman. I thought you were Time Agents, but you're not, are you?"

"Just a couple more free-lancers," Rose confirmed.

"Ahhh… should've known. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour—I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but U-Boat Captain. And you look like you should've gone to the countryside months ago! Actually, are you okay? You're looking very…"

Tense was probably the word he was looking for. Or scared. Or maybe just emotionless since she was pretty sure her face had turned into stone. "I don't like hospitals," Rey told him.

"Anyway… whatever's happening here has got _nothing_ to do with that ship."

"What _is_ happening here, Doctor," Rose asked, looking around.

"Human DNA's being rewritten… by an idiot."

"What d'you mean?"

"I dunno—some kind of virus. It's some kind of virus. It's converting human beings into these things." He nodded at the bodies. "But why? What's the point?"

Rose bent over one, taking a closer look. Abruptly, that body and all the other ones sat up. She flinched back just in time to avoid getting touched. "Mummy," they all asked, over and over and over. And then, like a scene in a nightmare, they all got out of bed.

"Don't let them touch you," the Doctor warned as the crowd began to herd the four of them back.

"What happens if they touch us?"

"You're looking at it."

Rey's back hit the wall. Not good. They were trapped, and she had no idea how they could possibly get out of this.

* * *

**I'm not entirely happy with how this chapter turned out, but hopefully the next two will somehow make up for it. **


	9. The Doctor Dances

"Go to your room," the Doctor sternly ordered. All at once the gas mask people around them stopped. "Go to your room," he repeated. "I mean it! I am very, very angry with you. I am very, _very_ cross! Go—to—your—_room_!" He pointed in a random direction and, surprisingly, all the gas mask people turned away. The climbed back into their beds and lay down again.

Rey breathed a sigh of relief. "Those would have been terrible last words if that didn't work," she weakly joked. He grinned at her. Only when he reached out for her hand did she realize she was shaking.

"Why are they all wearing gas masks," Rose asked.

"They're not," Jack told her. "Those masks are flesh and bone."

"How was your con supposed to work," the Doctor asked him, changing the subject.

"Simple enough, really. Find some harmless piece of space-junk… let the nearest Time Agent track it back to Earth. Convince him it's valuable, name a price. When he's put 50% up front—oops! A German bomb falls on it, destroys it forever. He never gets to see what he's paid for. Never knows he's been had. I buy him a drink with his own money, and we discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con."

"Yeah," he agreed sarcastically. "Perfect."

Jack didn't seem to notice. "The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners—Pompeii's nice if you want to make a vacation of it though, but you've got to set your alarm for volcano day." He chuckled at his own joke. The laughter quickly died down at the Doctor's critical look. "Getting a hint of disapproval."

"Take a look around the room. This is what your 'harmless piece of space-junk' did." The Doctor walked off, not wanting to deal with Jack anymore.

"We getting out of here," Rose asked hopefully, trailing after him.

"We're going upstairs," he corrected.

Jack followed them. "I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living—I harmed no one! I don't know what's happening here, but believe me—I had nothing to do with it."

"No one is saying you did this on purpose," Rey told him plainly. "But accidents can happen even from the noblest of intentions. Just because you don't mean for anyone to get hurt, doesn't mean no one will."

The all-clear siren echoed in the distance. Without another word, the Doctor pulled Rey along with him as he left the ward. Climbing up eight flights of stairs was far from fun, but after all the adventuring she'd done with him, it took a lot less out of her than it would have in the beginning.

A heavy door stood in the way of the room Jamie had been brought to. Rather than use the sonic or let Rey pick the lock, the Doctor doubled back and called down the stairs to Jack and Rose on the lower level. "Have you got a blaster?"

"Sure!"

"The night your space-junk landed, someone was hurt. This was where they were taken."

"What happened," Rose asked.

"Let's find out. Get it open," he commanded.

Jack grinned and pulled out his gun. Behind his back, the other three watched. "What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver," Rose whispered.

"Nothing."

The gun created a perfect square-shaped hole around the lock and knob of the door, allowing it so swing open. "Squarness gun," Rey noted. That was familiar.

"Sonic blaster," the Doctor observed. "51st century. Weapon Factories of Villengard?"

"You've been to the factors?"

The Doctor took the blaster into his own hands to get a closer look before handing it back. "Once."

"Well, they're gone now. Destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot."

"Now there's a banana grove there," Rey told him. "Destroying the reactor caused a chemical reaction in the atmosphere so they get a lot of rain."

"You like bananas," Jack asked flirtatiously.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was only because she knew that was his default setting and that he didn't mean much by it that stopped her from getting annoyed. But really, there was a time and place. "He does. I prefer apples, with faces on them."

The Doctor flipped the switch and the lights came flickering on. The room was a mess, not just because it hadn't been cleaned, but because it was been effectively destroyed. The window separating the patient room from the observation side was shattered, and there were papers all over the floor. "What d'you think?"

"_Something_ got out of here," Jack observed.

"Yeah. And?"

"Something powerful. Angry."

"Powerful and angry," he repeated.

Rey wandered into the other side of the room. Childish scribbles covered the floor and walls. A few toys were scattered about, as if their owner had thrown them in a tantrum. She didn't like being in there. It brought back memories she'd rather not have.

"A child," Jack asked. "I suppose this explains 'mummy.'"

"How could a child do this," Rose asked.

The Doctor tapped a button on the control panel, playing a recording of Dr. Constantine. "Do you know where you are?"

"Are you my mummy," the boy asked back.

"Are you aware of what's around you? Can you… see?"

"Are you my mummy?"

"What do you want? Do you know—"

"I want my mummy. Are you my mummy? I want my mummy! Are you my mummy?" He chanted the word over and over, calling for his mother.

"Doctor, I've heard this voice before," Rose said fearfully.

"Us too."

"Mummy?"

"Always, 'are you my mummy?' Like he doesn't know."

"Mummy?"

"Why doesn't he know?"

"Because he's scared… Or he was." Rey thought back to the child. There had been no fear in his voice. No fright in his body language. He didn't run or scream like scared people did. But it was the only explanation that made sense. "Isn't that what scared children do? Call for their mother?"

"Are you there, mummy? Mummy? Please, mummy? Mummy?"

The Doctor started pacing. "Can you sense it?"

"Sense what," Jack asked.

"Coming out of the walls, can you feel it?"

"Mummy?"

He stopped pacing abruptly, turning to face Rose and Jack. "Funny little human brains, how do you get around in those things? I mean, as always, Rey is the exception to the rule."

"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species," Rose told Jack.

"Rose, I'm thinking," the Doctor scolded, starting to pace again.

"Cuts himself shaving, does half an hour in lifeforms he's cleverer than…"

"There are children living rough around the bomb site," he told the others. "They come out during air-raids looking for food." In the background, the child was still calling for its mother. "Suppose they were there when this thing—whatever it was—landed?"

"It was a med-ship," Jack stressed. "It was harmless."

"Yes, you keep saying. 'Harmless.' Suppose one of them was affected—altered?"

"Altered how," Rose asked.

"He was scared, just like Rey said. Terribly afraid, and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do." He chuckled lightly. "It's got the power of a god, and I just sent it to its room."

Dread, cold and sharp, flooded her system, turning her blood into ice. "Doctor," Rey said slowly. She should have realized earlier, but she was so distracted by her own fear.

"I'm here," the child said. "Can't you see me?"

"What's that noise," Rose asked, referring to the crackling that filled the silent spaces of the room.

"It's the end of the tape," Rey told her. "It ran out about 30 seconds ago."

"I'm here, now. Can't you see me?"

"The Doctor sent it to its room, remember?"

"This is its room," he realized.

Spinning around, he saw that the boy had, indeed, come. He stood by the tape machine, head cocked as he observed them. "Are you my mummy? Mummy?"

"Doctor," Rose asked, not liking the way it was looking at her.

"Okay… on my signal," Jack said. "Make for the door. _Now_!" He pulled out a banana from where he kept his gun, and held it out threateningly, having expected the weapon instead.

Without missing a beat, the Doctor grinned and revealed that he'd taken Jack's sonic blaster. He fired a huge hole in the wall. "Go! Now! Don't drop the banana!"

"Why not," Jack asked as he hopped through the hole after Rey.

"Good source of potassium!"

They stumbled back into the corridor. Behind them, the child slowly followed. "Give me that!" Ripping his blaster out of the Doctor's hands, Jack aimed it back at the wall they'd just come through. Instead of creating another square hole, the wall rebuilt itself as if it had never been damaged in the first place. "Digital rewind. Nice switch." He tossed the banana back to the Doctor.

"It's from the Groves of Villengard. I thought it was appropriate."

"There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you two did that?"

"Bananas are good," he said plainly.

A loud thump came from the other side of the wall, cracking it with the force behind the knock. "Doctor," Rose urged.

"Come on!" He led the way down a flight of stairs, then down the corridor of the level below. All around them patients were coming out of their wards, calling out for "Mummy." They backtracked, Rey pulled on the back of Jack's coat to stop him from running right into the crowd. They ended up back where they started with the child having nearly broken through the wall already. "It's keeping us here so it can get to us."

Jack aimed the blaster in either direction around them. "It's controlling them?"

"It _is_ them," he corrected. "It's every living thing in this hospital."

"Okay. This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and a triple-enfolded sonic disruptor. Doc, what you got?"

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, holding it up as if it were a weapon. "A sonic, er… oh, never mind."

"What?"

Uselessly, he switched it on. "It's sonic, okay? Let's leave it at that."

"Disruptor," Jack asked. "Canon? What?"

"It's sonic! Totally sonic! I am sonic-ed up!"

"A sonic _what_?!"

"It's a screwdriver," Rey told him, exasperated by their antics.

Abruptly, Jack lowered his weapon and spun around to look at the Doctor. At the same time, Jaime had managed to break through the wall. Rose grabbed Jack's wrist, pointing the blaster at the floor beneath them. "Going down," she shouted before firing.

They hit the ground hard, landing in the ward below. Jack scrambled to use the rewind, sealing them in.

"Doctor, are you okay," Rose asked.

"Could've used a warning…"

"Ugh, the gratitude."

"My head," Rey complained as she rubbed the rapidly forming bump. Quickly, they all found their balance again and got up off the ground.

"Who has a sonic screwdriver," Jack asked, sounding offended by the idea of it.

"I do!"

"Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks 'oohoo, this could be a little more sonic?'"

"What, you've never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?"

Rose finally found the light switch and flicked it on. They were surrounded by gas mask people in their beds, who all sat up and began chanting "Mummy."

"Door," Jack said. They rushed at it as the patients got out of their cots, slowly moving towards them. Of course it was locked. And when he tried to blast it open, Jack's weapon let out a whine. "Damn it! It's the special features, they really drain the battery."

"The battery," Rose exclaimed incredulously. The Doctor opened the door with the sonic, allowing them to run out. "That's so _lame_." He slammed the door shut behind them and locked it again.

"I was gonna send for another one," Jack said as he ran to look out the window, "but _somebody's_ gonna blow up the factory."

"Oh, I know—first day I met him, they blew up—"

"Spoilers," Rey said. "It hasn't happened for me yet."

Jack looked at her curiously. "Okay, that door should hold it for a bit," the Doctor said.

"The door?! The _wall _didn't stop it," Jack pointed out.

"Well, it's gotta _find_ us first! Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!"

"Well, I've got a banana, and at a pinch you could put up some shelves," he said dryly.

"Window," the Doctor said, going over to it.

"Barred, sheer drop outside," Jack recited. "Seven stories."

"And no other visible exits," Rey noted.

Jack settled into a chair. The room was small, barely bigger than a closet. It was probably used for storage of old and broken miscellaneous things, judging by its contents. "Well, the assets conversation went in a flash, didn't it?"

The Doctor eyed him, then turned to ask Rose, "So, where'd you pick this one up, then?"

"Doctor," she warned.

"She was hanging from a barrage balloon, I had an invisible spaceship. I never stood a chance." The suggestive tone of his voice clearly made Rose uncomfortable.

"Okay, one, we want to get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here. Have I missed anything," the Doctor asked.

"Jack's teleported out," Rey told him.

The Doctor spun around, and sure enough, they were down their American conman. He let out a sound of frustration before sinking into Jack's abandoned seat. Rose put her hand casually on the chair's back, leaning in. "Okay, so he's vanished into thin air. Why is it always the _great_ looking ones who do that?"

The Doctor eyed Rey. Thinking he wanted an answer, she shrugged. She was hardly an expert when it came to relationships. Rose eyed their interaction with a slight frown. "I mean… men," she added.

"Rose? Rey? Doctor? Can you hear me?" Jack's voice came from the old radio on the shelf next to Rey. "I'm back on my ship. Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you. It's security-keyed to my molecular structure. I'm working on it—hang in there."

Rey examined the radio curiously. It wasn't plugged into anything. In fact, the wires had been ripped out. She thought back on what the child had done back at the house. "How are you speaking to us," she asked him.

"Om-Com. I can call anything with a speaker grille."

"So can the child."

"It can," Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Anything with a speaker grille. Even the TARDIS phone."

"What, you mean the child can phone us," she asked doubtfully.

"And I can hear you," Jaime said through the radio, like he was singing. "Coming to find you. Coming to fiiiiiind you."

"Can you hear that," Jack asked them.

"Loud and clear," the Doctor replied.

"I'll try to block out the signal. Least I can do."

"Coming to find you, mummy!"

"Remember this one, Rose?" A contemporary song started to play. Well, contemporary for this time. It was slow and romantic, the kind that Rey imagined couples swayed to for an excuse to stay close.

Rose looked embarrassed when the Doctor looked at her questioningly. "Our song," she said dismissively, leaving her spot behind the Doctor and sitting in a wheelchair. After a few seconds, the Doctor got up and walked over to the window. He started sonicing the wall next to it. "What you doing?"

"He's trying to set up a resonation pattern in the concrete to loosen the bars," Rey explained.

"You don't think he's coming back, do you," she asked him, referring to Jack.

"Wouldn't bet my life," the Doctor said dryly.

"Why don't you trust him?"

"Why do you?"

"Saved my life," she told him. "Bloke-wise, that's up there with flossing."

"Jack isn't bad," Rey said lightly. She didn't want to give anything away. "He's the type you usually like."

The Doctor regarded her carefully, as if trying to discern some hidden meaning in her words. She shrugged—she didn't mean anything else by it. The Doctor liked people with the spirit of adventurers, who might not conform to societal expectations of right and wrong, should and should not, but were still morally upright and caring. Maybe it was because she knew how Jack would grow as a person after spending some time with him, but she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Rose broke the silence. "I trust him 'cos he's like you," she said to the Doctor. "Except with dating and dancing."

He shot her a look.

"What?"

"You just assume I'm…"

"What?"

"You just assume that I don't… dance."

Rose grinned. "What, are you telling me you do… dance?"

"Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit. I think you can assume that at some point I've _danced_."

Her grin widened. "_You_?!"

"Problem?" He looked to Rey, who shrugged again. She had no idea what was going on. Listening in on this conversation was like being in her room by herself and listening to the nurses all laugh at their station down the hall. She just wasn't included.

"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you… dance," Rose teased.

"Well, I've got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast.

She got up out of the chair. "Show me your moves."

"Rose, I'm trying to resonate concrete."

"Jack'll be back, he'll get us out. So come on—the world doesn't end 'cos the Doctor dances." In order to cross the room to get to him, Rose had to walk past Rey. There was little space there, boxes and other things spilling out on the floor. It put the two girls very close together for a brief moment.

Long enough to notice something odd with Rose's hand. "You said you were hanging from a barrage balloon," she said abruptly.

"What?"

She glanced at the Doctor, pointing to her hand, and gestured for him to ask. Rose would probably brush her off if she tried. "What happened?"

"Oh… About two minutes after you left me. Thousands of feet above London—middle of a German air-raid—Union Jack _all_ over my chest."

"I've travelled with a lot of people," the Doctor told her, "But you're setting new records for jeopardy-friendly." Rey moved over so they could examine Rose's hands together. They were smooth. Healed.

"Is this you dancing," Rose asked, shooting a glance at Rey. "'Cos I've got notes."

"Hanging from a rope a thousand feet above London. Not a cut, not a bruise."

"Yeah, I know. Captain Jack fixed me up…"

"Oh, we're calling him 'Captain Jack' now, are we," the Doctor complained, going off-track.

"Well, his name's Jack and he's a captain," Rose said consideringly.

"He's not really a captain."

Rey moved away, that same feeling of exclusion creeping up on her again. Rose and the Doctor were flirting, and she didn't know why, but watching it made her feel sick. Maybe she'd hit her head harder than she thought?

This wasn't jealousy, was it? She didn't feel any surge of heat or irritation like the books described. She wasn't angry and the Doctor or Rose, she just… didn't want to be present if this was what they were going to be like.

It was nearly a relief when Jack teleported them onto his ship. Not that the couple noticed. He grinned at her as she walked over to his captain's chair. "So what was that 'spoiler' thing in the hall?"

"I jump around the Doctor's timeline at random so I don't always do things in the right order," she explained. Then she blinked. She'd never explained it herself to someone before, it was always the Doctor who'd done it. It sounded weird coming out of her mouth.

She sounded delusional. She sounded like everything Dr. Usher had diagnosed her with. Suddenly, she felt sick in an entirely different way.

"Are you okay," Jack asked, genuinely concerned.

"I'm fine," she said quickly. Then, to excuse any sign that she might be showing that contradicted this statement, she added again "I don't like hospitals."

"Good thing we're not in one anymore," he mused. Speaking up to interrupt Rose and the Doctor, he called out. "Most people notice when they've been teleported. Sorry about the delay. I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security."

The Doctor quickly let go of Rose's hands and walked over to the front of the cockpit. "You can spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols? Maybe you should remember whose ship it is."

"Oh, I do. She was _gorgeous_. Like I told her—be back in five minutes." He ducked down into a compartment beneath the console.

"This is a Chula ship, isn't it," Rey asked.

"Yeah, just like that medical transporter," Jack called from below. "Only, this one _is_ dangerous."

The Doctor clicked his fingers. Small glowing lights like fireflies instantly surrounded his hand. "They're that fixed my hands up," Rose exclaimed. "Jack called 'em, em…"

"Nanobots? Nanogenes?"

"Nanogenes, yeah."

"Sub-atomic robots," the Doctor explained. He held his hand out to Rey's head. A few of them settled on her bump. There was a warm sensation, and when they flew off her head no longer hurt. "There's millions of them in here, see? Burned my hand on the console when we landed—all better now. And Rey's head. They activate when the bulkhead's sealed. Check you for damage, fix any physical flaws."

"Thanks," she said softly. He smiled and dismissed the nanogenes with a wave of his hand.

"Take us to the crash site," he told Jack. "I need to see your space junk."

"As soon as I get the nav-com back online," Jack replied as a reluctant child might to their nagging parent. "Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were… doing."

Rey looked between the Doctor and Rose. "We were talking about dancing," he told her.

"It didn't look like talking," Jack noted.

"Didn't feel like dancing," Rose added.

"Is dancing supposed to be a metaphor," she asked. That happened a lot in books.

"No," he insisted. Then he went to pout by himself towards the back of the room

"So, you used to _be_ a Time Agent—now you're trying to con them," Rose asked Jack. He was back up top with them but still working on getting them ready for flight.

"If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money."

"Was your trust betrayed," Rey asked. She had never heard the story before, it never came up, but she could read something in the lines of Jack's body language.

He considered her carefully, obviously curious about how she'd come to that conclusion. "I woke up one day when I was working for them—found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back."

"They stole your memories," Rose asked incredulously. At the back, the Doctor watched him carefully.

"Two years of my life. No idea what I did. Your friend over there doesn't trust me. And for all I know… he's right not to." The computer suddenly beeped, breaking the tense mood. "Okay, we're good to go. Crash site?"

In no time at all they descended from Jack's ship to the rail station nearest the bombsite. So far, it wasn't difficult to stay out of sight—no one was around. By this time of night, nearly everyone was asleep, and those that weren't knew better than to wander outside. A guard stood just outside the barbed wire. "There it is. Ay, they've got Algy on duty. Must be important."

"We've gotta get past," the Doctor said.

"The words 'distract the guard' head in my general direction." Rose moved to stand up.

"I don't think that'd be such a good idea," Jack said.

"Don't worry… I can handle it."

"I've got to know Algy quite well since I've been in town. Trust me. You're not his type. I'll distract him. Don't wait up." And Jack was gone, strolling up to the guard like it was a Sunday afternoon and they weren't in the middle of a war.

"Relax," the Doctor assured Rose. "He's a 51st century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing."

"_How_ flexible?"

"The human race has spread out across half the galaxy by Jack's time," Rey helpfully added.

"Meaning?"

The Doctor grinned. "So many species, so little time…"

Rose actually looked a bit scandalized. "What, that's what we do when we get out there? That's our mission? We seek new life, and… and…"

"If the Doctor is Mr. Spock then Jack is more like Captain Kirk, I'd imagine," Rey said. "And it's good to be flexible."

Algy fell to his knees in front of Jack, hands on his neck like he was choking. Just like with Dr. Constantine, his face transformed into a gas mask. Noticing the commotion, the other soldiers began to rush over. "Stay back," the Doctor yelled, running over himself with Rey and Rose on his heels.

"You men! Stay away," Jack ordered as they others joined him. Algy lay motionless on the ground.

"The effect's become air-borne," the Doctor noted. "Accelerating."

"What's keeping _us_ safe," Rose asked.

"Luck," Rey told her. And then, as if to mock her, the air-raid siren blared to life.

"Ah, here they come again," Jack said.

"All we need," Rose complained. "Didn't you say a bomb was gonna land _here_?"

"Nevermind about that. If the contaminants air-borne now, there's hours left," the Doctor told them.

"For what?"

"'Til nothing. 'Til forever. For the entire human race. And can anyone else hear singing?"

Rey listened. "It's Nancy."

It was coming from a nearby shed. They rushed over to see her handcuffed to a chair inside, singing to a soldier who had also been changed. He was fast asleep at the table.

Rey crept inside. She motioned for Nancy to keep singing, then quickly picked the lock on the cuffs. The pair scurried out, joining the others inside the enclosure. Jack and the Doctor were working together to uncover the ship from the tarpaulin.

"You see? Just an ambulance."

"That's an ambulance," Nancy asked.

Rose slipped a reassuring arm around her. "It's hard to explain, it's… it's from another world."

"It's alien," Rey said plainly.

Jack examined the exterior controls. "They've been trying to get in."

"Of course they have," the Doctor said. "They think they've got their hands on Hitler's latest secret weapon. What're you doing?"

Jack was inputting a code. "Well, the sooner you see this thing is empty, the sooner you'll see I had nothing to do with it." The electronics sparked violently and exploded, setting off an alarm. A red light flashed. "Didn't happen last time."

"It hadn't crashed last time. They're the emergency protocols."

"Doctor, what _is_ that," Rose asked. "Doctor!" She had her answer soon enough. The gates of the bomb site were shaking.

"Jack, it might be a good idea to secure the gates," Rey suggested.

"Why?"

"Just do it," the Doctor snapped. He obeyed, running off to gather some of the soldiers to help. "Nancy, how'd you get in here?"

"I cut the wire," she said.

"Show Rey and Rose." He tossed her the sonic. "Know what setting?

"2428D," she listed off dutifully. "Reattaches barbed wire." He shot her a grin before turning back to the ship.

Nancy brought them over to where she'd snuck in. Over the wind, Rey could hear a steady call for "mummy," over and over as the gas mask people got closer. The work was slow—Rose had to hold the broken ends of the wire together for Rey to reattach them, and each took about half a minute or so to connect.

"Who are you," Nancy asked, staring at them. "Who are any of you?"

"You'd never believe me if I told ya," Rose said.

"You just told me that was an alien ambulance from another world. There are people running around with gas mask heads calling for their mummies, and the sky's full of Germans dropping bombs on me. Tell me. Do you think there's anything left I couldn't believe?"

"We're time travelers from the future," Rey said.

She took a second to process. "Mad, you are."

"We have a time travel machine," Rose protested. "Seriously!"

"It's not that. Alright—you've got a time travel machine. I believe ya. Believe anything, me." Nancy looked up at the sky. The planes were already there, and explosions ate up the sky. Anything that wasn't dark was red and orange and on fire. "But what future?"

"Nancy, this isn't the end," Rose gently told her. "I know how it looks. But it's not the end of the world or anything…"

"How can you say that? _Look_ at it."

"Listen to me. I was _born_ in this city. I'm from here, like, 50 years time."

"From here?" Nancy studied her carefully.

Rose smiled. "I'm a Londoner. From your future."

"But… but you're not…"

"What?"

"German," she said shyly.

"The Germans never do make it here," Rey said, attaching the last of the wires. Nancy's brow furrowed, not quite understanding.

"They don't win," Rose told her. "Don't tell anyone I told you so, but do you know what? _You_ win."

Nancy let out a breathy laugh, like she couldn't quite believe it. "We win?"

Rose smiled conspiratorially and nodded. She jumped to her feet. "Come on!"

Jack was opening the hatch of the ambulance when they got back. "It's empty," he said pointedly. "Look at it."

"What do you expect in a Chula medical transporter? Bandages? Cough drops? Rose?"

The blonde tensed at getting put on the spot. "I dunno."

Rey gave her a hint. "Your hands."

"Nanogenes!"

"It wasn't empty, Captain. There was enough nanogenes in there to rebuild a species."

Jack paled. "Oh, God."

"Getting it now, are we? When the ship crashes, the nanogenes escape. Billions upon billions of them, ready to fix all the cuts and bruises in the whole world. But what they find first is a dead child, probably killed earlier that night and wearing a gas mask."

"And they brought him back to life," Rose asked. "They can _do_ that?"

He shrugged. "What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Nothing to a nanogene. One problem, though—these nanogenes—they're not like the ones on your ship. This lot have never seen a human being before. Don't know what a human being's supposed to look like. All they've got to go on is one little body, and there's not a lot left. But they carry right on. They do what they're programmed to do, they patch it up. Can't tell what's gas mask and what's skull, but they do their best. Then off they fly—off they go, work to be done. 'Cos you see now they think they know what people should look like and it's time to fix all the rest. And they won't ever stop. They won't ever, ever stop. The entire human race is gonna be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother and _nothing_ in the world can stop it!"

The Doctor's voice had risen to a shout by now. He was red in the face, flush from anger, and so tense he was shaking with it.

"I didn't know," Jack said meekly but defiantly. He held the Doctor's cold stare for a few seconds.

"Like Rey said: just 'cos you don't mean for people to get hurt, doesn't me that's actually what happened." Having said his piece, he turned away to examine the ambulance again.

Nancy looked back at the shaking fence where the people had gathered, still calling out. "Rose? Rey?" There was already a fairly large sized crowd lined up, and more were coming from over the tracks.

"It's bringing the gas mask people here, isn't it," Rose asked.

"The ship thinks it's under attack. It's calling up the troops. Standard protocol."

"But… the gas mask people aren't troops…"

"Yes they are," Rey corrected. "It's a battle-field ambulance—the nanogenes don't just heal, they get you ready to go out on the front lines again. That's why the child is so strong, and why it could use the om-com."

"It's a fully equipped Chula warrior, yes," the Doctor confirmed. "All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old—looking for his mummy. And now there's an army of them."

"Why don't they attack," Jack asked.

"Good little soldiers. Waiting for their commander."

"The child?"

"Jamie," Nancy said. "Not 'the child.' Jamie."

Rose looked up. "So, how long until the bomb falls?"

"Any second," Jack told her.

"What's the matter, Captain? Bit close to the volcano for you?"

"He's just a little boy," Nancy continued sadly. "He's just a little boy who wants his mummy."

"I know," the Doctor said. "There isn't a little boy or girl born who wouldn't tear the world apart to save their mummy. And this little boy can."

"So what're we gonna _do_," Rose asked

"I don't know."

"It's my fault," Nancy insisted. There were tears in her eyes, and suddenly it all made sense to Rey. The way the little boy always chased after her, how he changed his question after hearing her voice, the fear and sorrow that Nancy felt every time he was brought up. "It is. It's all my fault."

"How can it be—"

"How old are you, Nancy," she asked gently. "You're like me, right? Older than you look."

A bomb landed nearby, causing Rose and Jack to flinch. "Doctor—that bomb," she urged. We've got seconds." Another landed even closer from the opposite direction. "You can teleport us out," she told Jack.

He shook his head. "Not you guys. The nav-com's back online. Gonna take too long to override the protocols."

The Doctor glanced between Rey and Nancy carefully. She could see the exact moment he figured out what to do. Without looking away, he said to Jack, "So it's volcano day. Do what you've got to do."

Nancy was openly crying now, tears running down her face accompanied by little hitches and sobs. "How old were you five years ago," he asked her "Fifteen? Sixteen? Old enough to give birth, anyway. He's not your brother, is he?"

She looked away, too ashamed to face him, and shook her head.

"A teenage single mother in 1941. So you hid. You lied." A nod this time. "You even lied to him."

The gates swung open with a crash. Jamie had arrived, standing at the forefront of the crowd like the leader of an army. "Are you my mummy?"

"He's gonna keep asking, Nancy. He's never gonna stop. Tell him." The Doctor had an idea. Not a plan, but a bet. And he was betting an entire species' survival on it. Rey hoped it worked. "Nancy… the future of the human race is in your hands. Trust me… and tell him."

"Are you my mummy?"

The Doctor gave her a gentle push towards Jamie.

"Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy?"

"Yes," she whispered. Then, in a stronger voice, stated, "Yes. I am your mummy."

Jamie walked towards her slowly. "Mummy?"

"I'm here."

"Are you my mummy?"

"I'm here."

"Are you my mummy?"

"Yes."

"He doesn't understand," the Doctor said quietly. "There's not enough of him left."

Nancy kneeled down so she was at eye level with Jamie. "I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I'm so sorry." She pulled him into her arms, not caring if he would change her. They glowed as the nonogenes reacted, surrounding them. Once again, the golden light reminded Rey of fireflies. "I am so, so sorry."

"What's happening," Rose asked. "Doctor, it's changing her, we should—"

He shushed her, not looking away from the scene in front of them. Blindly, he reached for Rey. She took his warm hand, shaking with the hope he almost didn't dare to feel. "Come on, please. Come on, you _clever_ little nanogenes—figure it out! The mother. She's the mother! There's gotta be enough information, figure it out!"

"What's happening?"

"See? Recognizing the same DNA."

Nancy fell back to the ground, away from Jamie. The light vanished and they rushed over to check on her. The Doctor stared down at Jamie, expression a mess of hope and tempered expectations. "Oh, come on," he said softly to no one. "Give me a day like this. Give me this one."

Slowly, he reached out for the gas mask… and pulled it off. Jamie's face, a perfectly normal human face, looked back at him. The Doctor laughed, loud and deep, lifting Jamie in the air and practically swinging him around. "Welcome back! Twenty years 'til pop music—you're gonna love it."

Nancy was nearly crying again, though this time in joy. "What happened?"

"The nanogenes recognized the superior information—the parent DNA. They didn't change you because you changed them! Haha!" He set Jamie down in front of her. "Mother knows best!"

"Jamie!" Nancy pulled him into another hug.

Another bomb landed nearby, reminded them where they were. "Doctor, that bomb," Rose warned.

"Taken care of it," he said dismissively.

"How?"

"Psychology!"

"Did you notice that Jack's gone," Rey asked her. "He didn't leave us."

Right on cue the bomb that was supposed to destroy the Chula ambulance plummeted towards them. With about twenty feet left to go, it was suddenly engulfed by a blue forcefield. A second later, Jack appeared, hovering out of what looked like a tunnel of light. "Doctor! Rey!"

"Good lad," the Doctor shouted back.

"The bomb's already commenced detonation. I've put it in stasis but it won't last long."

"Change of plan—don't need the bomb. Can you get rid of it? Safely as you can?"

"Rose," he asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"Goodbye." And then he disappeared, taking the bomb with him. "By the way," he added, reappearing. "Love the T-shirt." He grinned at her and left again, ship shooting off into the sky.

The Doctor took a few steps away from them and held up his hands. The nanogenes surrounded the appendages, glowing gold. "Software patch," he explained. "Gonna email the upgrade. You want moves, Rose? I'll give you moves." He flung the nanogenes away towards the crowd. They fell over like a wave had it them. "Everybody lives, Rey," he told her happily, nearly manic in his joy. "Just this once. Everybody lives!"

She was happy for him. She truly was. The Doctor needed a day like today, especially this Doctor, coming off the horrors of the Time War. Sometimes it was like he was teetering on the edge of nihilism, one bad day away from giving up.

But now he had a day like this. A day with no death and everyone ending up alright.

Slowly, the crowd got to its feet. Human faces greeted them, confused, yes, but alive. "Dr. Constantine, who never left his patients. Back on your feet, constant doctor! World doesn't wanna get by without you just yet, and I don't blame it one bit." He gestured to the others. "These are your patients. All better now!"

"Yes, yes… so it seems," Dr. Constantine agreed despite being utterly confused. "They also seem to be standing around in a disused railway station. Is there any particular reason for that?"

"Yeah, well, you know—cutbacks. Listen, whatever was wrong with them in the past, you're probably gonna find that they're cured. Just tell them what a great doctor you are. Don't make a big thing of it. Okay?" Leaving him with a clasp on the back, he rushed back to the Chula ship, setting it to self-destruct, and then they were off to the TARDIS.

It was hard to keep up with how fast he was running. It was like this trip had liberated some part of him, driving him forward. "The nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off," he explained rapidly as he worked at the controls. "Because I just told them to. Nancy and Jamie will go to Dr. Constantine for help—ditto—all in all, all things considered—fantastic!"

Rose smiled at him. "Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas!"

"Who says I'm not, red-bicycle-when-you-were-twelve?"

"What?!"

"And everybody lives, Rey!" He held his arms wide as if showing off. Or as if he wanted to physically embrace this moment. "Everybody lives! I need more days like this."

"So we're going to help Jack then," she asked leadingly. The Doctor's enthusiasm dropped a tick. "You said everybody. And he did help us."

"Do you know him from the future," he asked. "Is that why you've been so…"

"'So?'" She had no idea what he was talking about or why he was suddenly feeling insecure. Sometimes, even though she could read everything leading up to the moment, she still couldn't understand why people reacted the way they did. "He's a good man, he just needs a chance."

The Doctor held out for a second. "One chance," he agreed, and set them in flight.

Rose decided that she wanted to give dancing with the Doctor a second try right then. They waltzed clumsily to the same music Jack had played for them while they waited for the captain to notice. "Right, and turn…" He spun her, getting their arms tangled. "Okay, okay, try and spin me again, but this time—don't get my arm up my back! No extra points for a half-nelson."

"I'm _sure_ I used to know this stuff," the Doctor insisted, letting Rose go. "Close the door, will you," he said to Jack. "Your ship's about to blow up—there's gonna be a draft."

Rey flipped a switch to start the engines up again. "Welcome to the TARDIS."

"Much bigger on the inside…"

"You'd better be," the Doctor said. "It's on Rey's word that you're here so, don't disappoint."

"I think what the Doctor's _trying_ to say is… you may cut in," Rose said with a grin, taking his hand.

The music suddenly changed to something faster. Lights flashed in time with the beat. "I've just remember!" The Doctor clicked his fingers and swayed. "I can dance."

"Actually, Doctor… I thought Jack might like this dance," Rose said a little awkwardly.

Undeterred, the Doctor readily agreed. "I'm sure he would, Rose. I'm absolutely certain. But who with?"

Jack eyed the three of them and grinned.

* * *

**As mornings get darker, my cat is the only thing making sure I get out of bed at a reasonable time. I'm such a simp for him. He moves to sleep closer to me on the couch and my heart melts.**

**Also, super excited for the next chapter since we'll finally be getting some groundwork for Future Plot (yes, that's supposed to be in capital letters). Someone asked what Rey's initials stand for. Technically, you've already gotten a hint for what the "M" is. It'll be explicitly revealed much later. You'll find out about the "L" in 5 more chapters.**


End file.
